Return to home742 Apr 2,
Charlemagne (d.814), Charles I the Great, King of the Franks and
first Holy Roman emperor (800-14), was born. His capital was at
Aachen (Acquisgrana in Latin).
(V.D.-H.K.p.105)(SFEM, 10/12/97, p.46)(HN,
4/2/98)

1305 Apr 2, French Queen Jeanne
de Navarre (b.1273) died. In 1919 a “Book of Hours" prayer book,
that was made for her, sold for a record price at Sotheby’s.
(http://tinyurl.com/zw23x5r)(Econ, 9/17/16, p.78)

1416 Apr 2, Ferdinand I (52)
the Justified, king of Aragon and Sicily, died.
(MC, 4/2/02)

1672 Apr 2, Pedro Calungsod
(b.1654), a Filipino teenager, was killed in Tumon, Guam, along with
Diego Luis de San Vitores, his Jesuit missionary priest, by natives
resisting their conversion efforts. In 2012 Pedro was named a saint
in the Catholic church.
(AP,
10/20/12)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedro_Calungsod)

1772 Apr 2, Father Juan Crespi
looked out over a bay, later called Suisun Bay, and believed he had
found the fabled Northwest Passage, a shortcut to the Colorado
River. After Father Serra established a mission in Monterey, Ca,
Pedro Fages and Father Juan Crespi had set out to explore the SF Bay
by land.
(SFEC, 3/1/98, p.W34)(SFC, 5/3/13, p.D1)

1840 Apr 2, The Association of
American Geologists held its first meeting in Philadelphia.
(www.lib.uwaterloo.ca/society/history/1840aagn.html)
1840 Apr 2, Emile Zola
(d.1902), French novelist, reporter (Nana), was born. He tried to
wake the consciousness of the fin de siecle.
(HN, 4/2/98)(SFC, 12/29/00, p.C6)(V.D.-H.K.p.279)

1853 Apr 2, Lucie de la Tour du
Pin (83), born as Henriette-Lucie Dillon and former lady-in-waiting
to Marie Antoinette, died Paris. Her memoir, “Journal of a Woman of
Fifty Years," was not published until 1906. In 2009 Caroline
Moorhead authored “Dancing to the Precipice: Lucie de la Tour du Pin
and the French Revolution."
(Econ, 3/7/09, p.91)(http://tinyurl.com/co3xor)

1863 Apr 2, In Richmond, Va., a
large crowd of hungry women from one of Richmond's working-class
neighborhoods demanded bread from Governor John Letcher. When the
governor did not respond favorably to the rioters' demands, the
women marched down Main Street, shouting "Bread" as they made their
way to the commissary, where they smashed store windows and grabbed
food and anything else they could get their hands on. Not until the
mob faced President Davis and his troops did the rampage end. Varina
Howell Davis wrote an account of the riots after her husband’s death
in 1889.
(HNQ, 5/8/02)(AH, 6/02, p.24)

1865 Apr 2, Confederate
President Davis and most of his Cabinet fled the Confederate capital
of Richmond, Va. Grant broke Lee’s line at Petersburg. President
Jefferson Davis moved his government headquarters to Danville, Va.,
when its previous capital, Richmond, became engulfed in flames.
Though it would have been safer to secure a location further south,
Danville was naturally protected by the Dan and Staunton rivers, and
it was in close proximity to Gen. Robert E. Lee’s army to the north
and Gen. Joseph E. Johnston’s army to the south. The Piedmont
Railroad connected Danville and Greensboro, N.C. and offered easy
access to supplies.
(AP, 4/2/97)(HN, 4/2/98)(HNQ, 11/1/01)
1865 Apr 2, Battle of
Petersburg, Va. (Ft Gregg, Sutherland's Station).
(MC, 4/2/02)
1865 Apr 2, Battle of Ft.
Blakely, AL. and Selma, AL.
(MC, 4/2/02)
1865 Apr 2, Ambrose Powell Hill
(39), Confederate general, was killed in action.
(MC, 4/2/02)
1865 Apr 2, Richard Cobden
(b.1804), English manufacturer and Radical and Liberal statesman,
died. He had advocated for free trade and led the campaign against
Corn Laws, which were repealed in 1846.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Cobden)(Econ, 10/1/16, SR
p.16)

1870 Apr 2, Victoria Claflin
Woodhull (1838-1927) became the first woman to run for president of
the United States when she announced her candidacy for the 1872
election, but she spent Election Day in jail for sending obscene
literature through the mail. Articulate and radical in her beliefs,
she boldly challenged convention in Victorian-era America. Victoria
and her sister, Tennessee Claflin, got their start as spiritual
advisors to financier Cornelius Vanderbilt. With his backing, the
sisters became the first women to open their own successful
brokerage firm. Woodhull was the first woman newspaper publisher, a
feminist and a militant suffragist, but most shocking to Victorian
sensibilities, she also advocated free love.
(HNPD, 4/28/99)

1875 Apr 2, Walter Chrysler,
founder of Chrysler automobile company, was born. He grew up in
Ellis, Kansas.
(HN, 4/2/98)(WSJ, 8/10/00, p.A16)
1875 Apr 2, In San Francisco a
painting of a dead maiden titled “Elaine" by Toby Rosenthal
(1848-1917), was discovered stolen from the Snow & May art
gallery on Kearny St. The Prussia-born artist had been raised in San
Francisco before he went to study art in Germany. On April 4 police
arrested William Donohue and three cronies and recovered the
painting at a shanty on Langton St.
(SFC, 12/9/17, p.C2)

1902 Apr 2, Thomas L. Talley
set up the first moving picture theater as part of a carnival in Los
Angeles.
(SFEC, 5/23/99, Z1 p.10)(MC, 4/2/02)

1905 Apr 2, Kurt Adler
(d.1988), American conductor, was born. "Tradition is what you
resort to when you don't have the time or the money to do it right."
(HN, 4/2/01)(AP, 8/25/99)
1905 Apr 2, Serge Lifar, dancer
and opera director, was born.
(HN, 4/2/01)

1908 Apr 2, Buddy Ebsen
(d.2003), actor-dancer, was born in Belleville, Ill. He played Jed
Clampett in the popular television series The Beverly Hillbillies.
(AP,
4/2/08)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddy_Ebsen)

1914 Apr 2, Alec Guinness,
English stage and film actor, was born illegitimate and spent his
early years in penury.
(WSJ, 8/15/00, p.A26)
1914 Apr 2, Federal Reserve
Board announced plans to divide country into 12 districts. [see Nov
16, 1914]
(HN, 4/2/98)

1916 Apr 2, German troops
overtook Bois de Caillette.
(MC, 4/2/02)

1917 Apr 2, At 8:30 p.m.
President Woodrow Wilson, delivered his message before a joint
session of Congress and recommended that a state of war be declared
between the United States and the imperial German government.
Realizing that the war looming ahead would be a costly one, Wilson
said, "the day has come when America is privileged to spend her
blood and her might for the principles that gave her birth and
happiness and the peace which she has treasured…" and "The world
must be made safe for democracy."
(AP, 4/2/97)(HN,
4/2/98)(http://condor.stcloudstate.edu/~brixr01/theTIMEMACHINE.html)
1917 Apr 2, Jeannette Pickering
Rankin was sworn in as the first woman to serve in the U.S. House of
Representatives.
(HN, 4/2/01)

1921 Apr 2, Einstein
(1879-1955) made his first visit to the US on a fundraising tour
with Zionist leader Chaim Weizman. Prof. Albert Einstein lectured in
NYC on his new theory of relativity. In 2007 Jurgen Neffe authored
“Einstein: A Biography;" and Jozsef Illy edited “Albert Meets
America."
(SSFC, 5/13/07,
p.M6)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein)

1931 Apr 2, Virne "Jackie"
Mitchell became the 2nd woman to play for an all-male pro baseball
team. In an exhibition game against the New York Yankees, she struck
out both Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig in an exhibition game in
Chattanooga, Tennessee.
(HN,
4/2/01)(www.exploratorium.edu/baseball/mitchell.html)

1932 Apr 2, Aviator Charles A.
Lindbergh and Dr. John F. Condon turned over $50,000 in ransom to an
unidentified man in a New York City cemetery in the Bronx, in
exchange for Lindbergh's kidnapped son. The infant was not returned,
and was found dead the following month.
(AP, 4/2/97)(HN, 4/2/98)

1951 Apr 2, William McChesney
Martin (1906-1998) began to serve as chairman of the US Federal
Reserve and continued to 1970. Pres. Harry Truman pressed him to
keep interest rates low despite the inflationary consequences of the
Korean War. Martin refused.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_McChesney_Martin)(Econ,
4/29/17, p.58)

1964 Apr 2, A military coup in
Brazil by Gen. Humberto Castello Branco ousted Pres. Joao Goulart
and altered the traditional power structure. Gen'l. Golbery do Couto
e Silva was a leader in the coup. Business interests led by Jorge
Oscar de Mello Flores (d.2000 at 88) supported the military coup.
(WSJ, 12/4/95, p.A-9)(WSJ, 7/7/99, p.A17)(SFC,
8/3/00, p.D2)(MC, 4/2/02)

1968 Apr 2, The influential
science-fiction film "2001: A Space Odyssey," produced and directed
by Stanley Kubrick, had its world premiere in Washington.
(AP, 4/2/08)
1968 Apr 2, Senator Eugene
McCarthy won the Democratic primaries in Wisconsin. In 2004 Dominic
Sandbrook authored "Eugene McCarthy: The Rise and Fall of Postwar
American Liberalism."
(http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/features/2005/06/15_newsroom_mccarthytimeline/)(SSFC,
4/11/04, p.M6)
1968 Apr 2, In West Germany the
Baader-Meinhof gang was formed and named after its founders, Andreas
Baader and Ulrike Meinhof. Both later committed suicide in prison.
The gang became known as the Red Army Faction and led
assassinations, bombings and bank robberies in West Germany through
the 1970s and 1980s. The RAF published a letter to Reuters in 1998
and declared to have disbanded.
(SFC, 4/21/98,
p.A18)(www.baader-meinhof.com/timeline/1968.html)

1970 Apr 2, In Nepal 2 men
began an ascent of south face of Annapurna I, the highest final
stage in a wall climb in world.
(MC, 4/2/02)\

1971 Apr 2, The ABC sci-fi soap
opera "Dark Shadows," which premiered in 1966, aired for the last
time.
(www.tv.com/Dark-Shadows/show/2374/summary.html)

1972 Apr 2, Tennessee Williams'
"Small Craft Warnings," premiered in NYC.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_Craft_Warnings)
1972 Apr 2, In response to the
North Vietnamese Easter Offensive, President Nixon authorized the US
7th Fleet to target NVA troops massed around the Demilitarized Zone
with air strikes and naval gunfire.
(www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/vietnam/index-1969.html)

1974 Apr 2, In the 46th Academy
Awards "Sting," Glenda Jackson and Jack Lemmon win. Robert Opel (33)
of SF streaked naked across the stage. Opel was shot and killed 5
years later during a robbery in SF.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/46th_Academy_Awards)(SFEC, 3/14/99, DB
p.37)
1974 Apr 2,
French President Georges Pompidou (62) died in Paris. Alain Pohrer
(1909-1996) as president of the Senate then served as interim
president for 7 weeks.
(SFC, 12/12/96, p.C8)(AP, 4/2/97)

1975 Apr 2, In Oakland, Ca., a
World Airways plane landed with 52 Vietnamese orphans as part of
Operation Babylift. The Presidio of San Francisco served as an
impromptu crossroads for over 1,500 Vietnamese orphans to be sent to
American families for adoption.
(SFC, 4/18/15, p.C1)

1978 Apr 2, TV show "Dallas"
premiered on CBS as a 5 week mini-series. It was produced by Leonard
Katzman (1927-1996) and ran through May, 1991. [see Mar 2]
(SFC, 9/9/96, p.A26)(MC, 4/2/02)

1979 Apr 2, Israeli PM Menachem
Begin visited Cairo, Egypt, and met with Pres. Sadat.
(www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/time70s.html#1979)
1979 Apr 2, Anthrax was found
to have leaked from the secret lab of Compound 19 in Sverdlovsk
(later renamed Yekaterinburg) in the Ural Mountains. It caused a
local epidemic that killed at least 64/66 people. Pres. Yeltsin
acknowledged the leak in 1992 and allowed a team of researchers to
investigate the site. In 2000 Jeanne Guillemin authored "Anthrax:
The Investigation of a Deadly Outbreak." [see Mar 30]
(SFC, 2/19/00, p.A14)(SFEC, 8/13/00, BR p.7)(WSJ,
9/18/01, p.B1)

1981 Apr 2, Heavy battle took
place between Christian militia and Syrian army in East Lebanon.
Casualties and injuries were in the hundreds.
(www.2la.org/lebanon/ee/terrorlb.htm)

1982 Apr 2,
Several thousand troops from Argentina seized the disputed Falkland
Islands, located in the south Atlantic, from Britain but Lady
Thatcher had Britain take them back the following June. Britain
fought with Argentina in the Falkland Islands War, also known as the
Falklands War, the Malvinas War and the South Atlantic War. The
short, undeclared war between the two nations was fought over claims
to the Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas) and neighboring islands.
Argentina had laid claims to the territories since the 19th century,
but spurred by a related dispute on South Georgia island and
political expediency, the military government of Argentina invaded
the Falkland Islands. A British naval task force was assembled and
headed towards the war zone by late April. British forces
established a beachhead on the Falklands in late May. With the
surrender of the Argentine garrison at Stanley on June 14, the
conflict was essentially over.
(TMC, 1994, p.1982)(WSJ, 12/12/95, p.A-15)(AP,
4/2/99)(HNQ, 1/10/01)

1985 Apr 2, Ronnie Gardner shot
and killed Utah attorney Michael Burdell during an escape attempt at
the Metropolitan Hall of Justice in Salt Lake City. Gardner was
convicted of murder and sentenced to death. In 2010 Gardner (49)
chose to die by firing squad, an option which was removed by state
lawmakers in 2004, but still available to him.
(SFC, 4/24/10, p.A5)

1986 Apr 2, George Corley
Wallace (1919-1998), Governor of Alabama (Dem.), announced his
retirement.
(http://tinyurl.com/fuobf)(http://tinyurl.com/eegg3)
1986 Apr 2, Four American
passengers were killed when a bomb exploded aboard a TWA jetliner en
route from Rome to Athens, Greece.
(AP, 4/2/98)

1991 Apr 2, Iraqi state media
reported that only a few more days were needed to stamp out fighting
with Kurdish rebels, who reported renewed skirmishes around the
strategic oil center of Kirkuk.
(AP, 4/2/01)

1992 Apr 2, John Gotti
(d.2002), Mafia boss, was convicted in New York City of 5 murders
and racketeering. Underboss Sammy “the Bull" Gravano provided
testimony. The murders included the 1985 hit on Paul Castellano,
head of the Gambino family. He was sentenced to life in prison on
June 23.
(AP, 4/2/98)(USAT, 9/24/98, p.11A)(SFC, 6/11/02,
p.A2)(SSFC, 8/11/02, Par p.4)
1992 Apr 2, The space shuttle
Atlantis returned from a nine-day mission.
(AP, 4/2/02)
1992 Apr 2, French Premier
Edith Cresson, who had served 10 turbulent months as France's first
woman prime minister, resigned after election setbacks for the
ruling Socialists.
(AP, 4/2/02)

1993 Apr 2, President Clinton
presided at a daylong conference in Portland, Ore., on how much
logging should be allowed on federal land.
(AP, 4/2/98)
1993 Apr 2, Ellie Nesler
(1952-2008) shot and killed Daniel Driver in a Jamestown, Ca.,
courtroom. Driver had been accused of molesting her son and three
other boys. She was sentenced to 10 years in prison. She later
admitted to investigators that she had taken “crank" that morning.
She was freed in 1997 after serving 3 and 1/2 years in prison. The
events were made into a 1999 TV movie. In 2002 she was sentenced to
6 years in prison for selling and possessing illegal drugs. In 2005
her son Willy was convicted of 1st degree murder for the stomping
death in 2004 of a man on their property.
(SFC, 11/21/96, p.A22)(SFC, 8/22/97, p.A1)(SFC,
6/23/99, p.B1)(SFC, 6/6/06, p.B8)(SFC, 12/30/08, p.B1)
1993 Apr 2, In Illinois Andy
Ascher (22) was killed in Rockford. In 1994 Patrick Pursley was
convicted in the murder of Ascher based on ballistic evidence from
the crime scene. In 2017 technological advances eroded confidence in
the evidence and Pursley faced a new trial.
(SFC, 8/10/17, p.A7)
1993 Apr 2, The Bosnian Serb
parliament rejected a peace plan drafted by U.N. and European
mediators and already approved by Bosnian Muslims and Croats.
(AP, 4/2/98)

1994 Apr 2, President Clinton
warned Americans against "demagogues of division" in his weekly
radio address, while calling for greater personal responsibility and
cooperation to overcome the nation's problems.
(AP, 4/2/99)
1994 Apr 2, In California
Preston Tate was shot and killed by guards during an allegedly
staged fight at the Corcoran State Prison.
(SFC, 11/22/96, p.A26)
1994 Apr 2, Consumer reporter
Betty Furness died in Hartsdale, N.Y., at age 78.
(AP, 4/2/99)

1995 Apr 2, Baseball owners
accepted the players' union offer to play without a contract, ending
the longest and costliest strike in the history of professional
sports.
(AP, 4/2/98)
1995 Apr 2, The NYC Police Dept
and Transit Police merged into one organization.
(www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/html/transportation/tpd.html)
1995 Apr 2, Members of the
extremist group Hamas accidentally set off a bomb that tore through
their hideout in the Gaza Strip, killing six people.
(AP, 4/2/00)

1996 Apr 2, A federal appeals
court rejected New York state laws banning doctor-assisted suicide,
saying it would be discriminatory to let people disconnect life
support systems while refusing to let others end their lives with
medication.
(AP, 4/2/01)
1996 Apr 2, In Colombia
architect Juan Carlos Gaviria, brother of former pres. Cesar Gaviria
was kidnapped by a group called Dignity for Colombia.
(SFC, 6/13/96, p.C3)
1996 Apr 2, If the Indian Hindu
Nationalist Party wins elections, it will move toward testing a
nuclear bomb.
(WSJ, 4/2/96, p.A-1)
1996 Apr 2, N. Korea appealed
for food. $2 million in aid was lost last month when a ship sank off
Taiwan.
(WSJ, 4/2/96, p.A-1)
1996 Apr 2, More than 100
Haitians died when a ferry sank.
(WSJ, 4/3/96, p.A-1)

1997 Apr 2, The White House
released documents showing how eager it had been to exploit the
money-drawing powers of President Clinton and Vice President Gore
during the 1996 campaign while coordinating with the Democratic
Party's fund-raising machine.
(AP, 4/2/98)
1997 Apr 2, An Air Force A-10
Thunderbolt jet with four 500- pound bombs was lost over the
Colorado Rockies. It was piloted by Capt. Craig Button (32).
Wreckage of the plane was found Apr 20 on the sheer face of New York
Mountain [Gold Dust Peak], 15 miles from Vail. It was later
suspected that he committed suicide due to a possible revelation of
homosexuality. A 1998 official report cited unrequited love for a
former girlfriend and his mother's Christian pacifist faith.
(SFE, 4/9/97, p.A16)(SFC, 4/21/97, p.A1)(WSJ,
4/21/97, p.A1)(SFC, 5/3/97, p.A3)(SFC, 12/25/98, p.A3)(SFC, 8/26/99,
p.A3)
1997 Apr 2, Tomoyuki Tanaka
(86), producer (Godzilla), died of a stroke.
(MC, 4/2/02)

1998 Apr 2, California agreed
to settle a sexual harassment lawsuit brought by 3 female prison
workers for $4.3 million.
(SFC, 4/3/98, p.A26)
1998 Apr 2, In Kansas City it
was reported that the SubTropolis underground business complex had
some 4.3 million sq. feet of mine space converted to warehouse,
office and factory use with 50 enterprises employing 1300 people.
The underground industrial park began in 1945 as a limestone mine.
(WSJ, 4/2/98, p.A1)
1998 Apr 2, In Burma ethnic
Karen rebels launched attacks against Burmese troops and killed 30
people.
(SFC, 4/4/98, p.A16)
1998 Apr 2, In Columbia Thomas
Fiore (43), one of the hostages captured Mar 27, escaped captivity
by the FARC rebel group.
(SFC, 4/3/98, p.B5)
1998 Apr 2, A French court
found Maurice Papon (1910-2007), a career civil servant, guilty of
deporting Jews from Bordeaux in 1942-1943, when he was
secretary-general of the Gironde Prefecture. He was sentenced to 10
years in prison, but served only 3 due to ill health.
(SFC, 4/2/98, p.C2)(SFC, 4/3/98, p.B2)(Econ,
2/24/07, p.99)
1998 Apr 2, Iran and Iraq began
a war prisoner exchange involving nearly 6000 men, mostly Iraqis.
(WSJ, 4/3/98, p.A1)
1998 Apr 2, In Northern Ireland
police intercepted a 980-pound bomb at Dublin’s ferry port.
(SFC, 4/3/98, p.B8)
1998 Apr 2, In Israel three
Arab homes were demolished in the Bedouin village of Suweij. Clashes
with Israeli police occurred over the next few days as the Arabs
attempted to rebuild their homes.
(SFC, 4/6/98, p.A12)
1998 Apr 2, In Latvia the only
Jewish synagogue in Riga was bombed.
(SFC, 4/798, p.A14)
1998 Apr 2, Shaking their fists
in rage, thousands of mourners marched in a funeral procession in
the West Bank for a top Hamas bombmaker, Mohiyedine Sharif, hailed
by Palestinians as a martyr and condemned by Israel as a terrorist.
(AP, 4/2/99)
1998 Apr 2, In Romania Radu
Vasile, an economist and leader of the national Peasant Party, was
named by Pres. Emil Constantinescu as the new prime minister. He
soon began reforms with an economic program to restore domestic and
foreign confidence.
(SFC, 4/3/98, p.B5)(WSJ, 5/6/98, p.A18)
1998 Apr 2, Sudanese soldiers
shot and beat to death 74 student conscripts who tried to flee the
Ailafoon military camp. At least 55 others drowned when their boat
capsized on the blue Nile while they tried to escape.
(SFC, 4/13/98, p.A12)

1999 Apr 2, The US Labor
Department reported that the nation's unemployment rate fell to a
29-year low of 4.2 percent in March 1999.
(AP, 4/2/00)
1999 Apr 2, Sec. of Energy Bill
Richardson ordered the computer systems at Los Alamos laboratory to
be shut down due to security leaks.
(SFEC, 5/2/99, p.A24)
1999 Apr 2, David L. Smith
(30), a New Jersey computer programmer, was arrested and charged
with writing and unleashing the Melissa computer virus.
(SFC, 4/3/99, p.A3)
1999 Apr 2, At least 7 people
died in a freak snowstorm while trying to cross the Mexican border
into California in the Cleveland National Forest.
(SFC, 4/3/99, p.A1)
1999 Apr 2, NATO planners began
preliminary discussions about the possibility of sending ground
troops into Kosovo.
(SFC, 4/3/99, p.A1)
1999 Apr 2, Allied aircraft
resumed bombing in Iraq after a 2 week lull.
(SFC, 4/3/99, p.A4)
1999 Apr 2, In Albania Hashim
Thaci, a leading nationalist politician, named a new government with
himself in charge. Moderates loyal to Ibrahim Rugova were excluded
after no candidates were put forth.
(SFC, 4/3/99, p.A6)
1999 Apr 2, From West
Kalimantan, Indonesia, it was reported Malays and indigenous Dayaks
had killed over 200 people over the last 2 weeks. Nearly 30,000
Muslim people, originally from Madura, were reported to have fled
their villages.
(WSJ, 4/2/99, p.A9)
1999 Apr 2, In Russia Pres.
Yeltsin ordered the dismissal of Prosecutor Gen'l. Yuri Skuratov
just hours after Skuratov appeared on TV announcing that he had the
names of Russian officials who had illegally transferred dirty money
into Swiss bank accounts. Skuratov was earlier caught on video
cavorting with 2 prostitutes.
(SFC, 4/3/99, p.A3)
1999 Apr 2, At least 55 people
were gunned down by Serbian police and militiamen in the Kosovo city
of Djakovica.
(SFC, 4/29/99, p.D2)

2000 Apr 2, Connecticut won its
second women’s NCAA national championship with a 71-to-52 victory
over Tennessee.
(AP, 4/2/01)
2000 Apr 2, More than 600
people set out on a five-day, 120-mile protest march to Columbia,
South Carolina, to urge state lawmakers to move the Confederate flag
from the Statehouse dome.
(AP, 4/2/01)
2000 Apr 2, It was reported
that a Nov. 1999, 79-page CIA report: “International Trafficking in
Women to the United States: A Contemporary Manifestation of
Slavery," claimed 50,000 victims per year in the US.
(SFEC, 4/2/00, p.A3)
2000 Apr 2, In Japan Prime
Minister Keizo Obuchi suffered a stroke and Mikio Aoki took over as
Acting Premier. He died more than a month later.
(SFC, 4/3/00, p.A8)(AP, 4/2/01)
2000 Apr 2, In Rwanda Tutsi
leader Paul Kagame assumed office as the country’s 4th president.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Kagame)
2000 cApr 2, South Korea said
it would slaughter 350,000 hoofed livestock to stem public concerns
over an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease.
(WSJ, 4/3/00, p.A21)
2000 Apr 2, In Sri Lanka a rebel attack launched 7
days earlier had left 78 fighters dead. Rebels said 700 government
troops had been killed since the attack began with 71 rebels dead.
The army admitted to 102 deaths and claimed 210 rebels killed.
Thousands of residents were stranded near the Elephant Pass
causeway.
(SFC, 4/3/00, p.A9)

2001 Apr 2, Duke won its third
national men's basketball championship (NCAA) with an 82-to-72
victory over Arizona for the.
(WSJ, 4/4/01, p.A18)(AP, 4/2/02)
2001 Apr 2, Pres. Bush demanded
that the Chinese release the US Navy crew and spy plane that had
made an emergency landing on China’s Hainan Island after colliding
with a Chinese fighter.
(SFC, 4/3/01, p.A1)(WSJ, 4/3/01, p.A1)(AP,
4/2/02)
2001 Apr 2, Pres. Bush met with
Egypt’s Pres. Mubarak and both pledged to continue searching for an
end to Middle East violence.
(WSJ, 4/3/01, p.A1)
2001 Apr 2, Vincent Cianci Jr.
(59), mayor of Providence, RI, was indicted by a federal grand jury
on racketeering charges. Cianci was convicted on a single count of
racketeering conspiracy in Jun, 2002, and sentenced to 5 years and 4
months in jail on Sep 6. In 2003 Mike Stanton authored "The Prince
of Providence," a biography of Cianci.
(SFC, 4/3/01, p.A2)(SFC, 6/25/02, p.A4)(SFC,
9/7/02, p.A3)(WSJ, 8/5/03, p.D5)
2001 Apr 2, The town of Edgar
Springs, Mo., was named the population center of the US. It marked
the point where the US would balance if its 281 million population
were equally distributed. The actual center was 3 miles east of
town.
(SFC, 4/3/01, p.A2)
2001 Apr 2, Scientists reported
new evidence for “dark energy" and believed that it was causing the
universe to expand faster with time.
(SFC, 4/3/01, p.A1)
2001 Apr 2, An Israeli
helicopter rocketed a truck and killed an Islamic Jihad militant. In
Bethlehem a sniper killed an Israeli soldier.
(WSJ, 4/3/01, p.A1)
2001 Apr 2, In Japan the new
freedom of information law went into effect 2 years after it was
approved by Parliament.
(SSFC, 4/15/01, p.D4)
2001 Apr 2, In Nepal a Maoist
insurgency killed at least 38 people.
(SFC, 4/3/01, p.A9)

2002 Apr 2, In California a SF
jury awarded $33.7 million to a former Navy electrician who acquired
mesothelioma from asbestos exposure. Foster Wheeler Corp. was the
defendant.
(SFC, 4/3/02, p.A13)
2002 Apr 2, In Illinois federal
prosecutors indicted the campaign committee of Gov. George Ryan and
2 former top aids on charges of racketeering, mail fraud and
conspiracy to obstruct justice.
(SFC, 4/3/02, p.A3)
2002 Apr 2, Prof. John Pierce
(92), communications engineer and author, died in Mountain View, Ca.
He authored about 20 books, invented the Pierce Gun, a vacuum tube
that transmits electrons, received some 90 patents and provided the
transistor its name.
(SFC, 4/9/02, p.A18)
2002 Apr 2, Argentina marked
the 20th anniversary of the Falklands War and Pres. Duhalde said the
Falkland Islands would be regained through diplomacy.
(SFC, 4/3/02, p.A7)
2002 Apr 2, The Israeli army
attacked the headquarters of Jibril Rajoub, security chief of the
Palestinian Authority. The Israeli Army said it found a letter in
Arafat’s compound that detailed money requests for building bombs.
PM Sharon offered Yasser Arafat a one-way ticket to exile and
battles with Palestinian militiamen continued and at least 13
Palestinians were killed.
(SFC, 4/2/02, p.A1)(SFC, 4/3/02, p.A1,10)(WSJ,
4/3/02, p.A1)
2002 Apr 2, Israel seized
control of Bethlehem; Palestinian gunmen forced their way into the
Church of the Nativity, the traditional birthplace of Jesus, where
they began a 39-day standoff.
(AP, 4/2/03)

2003 Apr 2, In the 15th day of
Operation Iraqi Freedom American forces crossed the Tigris River in
the drive toward the Iraqi capital and destroyed the Baghdad
Division of Iraq's Republican Guard. Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff, supported the war plan along with Defense
Sec. Donald Rumsfeld against criticism. US Marines took Numaniya, a
city of 80,000. American forces fought their way to within sight of
the Baghdad skyline; Iraqi soldiers discarded their military
uniforms by the roadside to hide their identity.
(SFC, 4/2/03, p.A1)(SFC, 4/4/03, p.W1)(AP,
4/2/08)
2003 Apr 2, A US B-52 bomber
dropped 2 new CBU-105 bombs on the first 30 vehicles of an Iraqi
armored convoy approaching a small American reconnaissance unit. The
bombs each released 10 submunitions, each of which ejected 4 disks
that used infra-red scanners to locate the vehicles. Soldiers in the
remaining 70 vehicles surrendered immediately.
(Econ, 1/30/10, p.88)
2003 Apr 2, A Navy F/A-18C
Hornet after his fighter jet went down during a bombing run over
Karbala. In 2004 it was reported that the jet was shot down by an
Army Patriot missile. 7 US Army soldiers were killed when their
Black Hawk helicopter was shot down.
(AP, 4/3/03)(SFC, 4/3/03, p.A1)(SFC, 12/11/04,
p.A12)
2003 Apr 2, Polish troops
fighting with the US-led coalition in Iraq reported encountering
many Iraqi combatants in civilian clothes.
(AP, 4/2/03)
2003 Apr 2, Saddam Hussein
declared that "victory is at hand," and issued a new statement
urging Iraqis to fight on and defend their towns according to a
broadcast on Iraqi satellite television.
(AP, 4/2/03)
2003 Apr 2, Mirko Sarovic, a
Bosnian Serb who was the chairman of the country's three-member
multiethnic presidency, resigned after being implicated in a local
company's violation of the UN arms embargo against Iraq.
(AP, 4/2/03)
2003 Apr 2, Burundi said
Ethiopia, Mozambique and South Africa will send 3,500 peacekeepers
to enforce a truce ending nearly 10 years of civil war.
(AP, 4/2/03)
2003 Apr 2, Guatemala City
police raided the house of a suspected drug lord and found $14
million in cash.
(SFC, 4/4/03, p.A18)
2003 Apr 2, In
Indian-controlled Kashmir the chief of the largest militant group
was killed in a shootout with police in the strife-torn Himalayan
province.
(AP, 4/2/03)
2003 Apr 2, Israeli forces
raided Gaza and 6 Palestinians were killed.
(SFC, 4/3/03, p.A12)(WSJ, 4/3/03, p.A1)
2003 Apr 2, The Japanese
government said a Japanese whaling fleet killed 400 minke whales
during a five-month scientific expedition in Antarctic waters.
(AP, 4/2/03)
2003 Apr 2, In Mexico 9 people
were found tortured and killed near the border city of Nuevo Laredo
in apparent drug-related violence.
(AP, 4/2/03)
2003 Apr 2, In the southern
Philippine city of Davao a bomb exploded near a bustling wharf, and
killed 16 people including two children.
(AP, 4/3/03)(SFC, 4/3/03, p.A11)
2003 Apr 2, The UN health
agency advised travelers to avoid going to Hong Kong and the Chinese
province of Guangdong because of the deadly outbreak of SARS.
(AP, 4/2/03)
2003 Apr 2, Vietnam's PM Phan
Van Khai spoke with Thich Huyen Quang, the leader of a banned
Buddhist church, about religious freedoms. Quang has been under
house arrest in 1982.
(AP, 4/3/03)

2004 Apr 2, Washington
announced plans to fingerprint and photograph millions of travelers
to the United States. The measure, which will take effect by Sept.
30, affected citizens in 27 countries who had been allowed to travel
within the US without a visa for up to 90 days.
(AP, 4/2/04)
2004 Apr 2, The US Labor Dept.
reported a 308,000 increase in jobs along with a rise in
unemployment from 5.6 to 5.7%. The DJIA rose 97 points in response
to close at 10,470.
(SFC, 4/3/04, p.A1)
2004 Apr 2, The Pentagon said
it released 15 people held as terrorism suspects at a U.S. military
prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, reducing the number confined there
to 595.
(AP, 4/2/04)
2004 Apr 2, The 6-month Tyco
trial ended with a hung jury. A threatening letter to a lone
dissident juror prompted the judge to call a mistrial. A retrial was
planned.
(SFC, 4/3/04, p.C1)
2004 Apr 2, Sun Microsystems
announced that Microsoft would pay it nearly $2 billion to settle a
legal dispute. Sun also announced layoffs of 3,300 and a business
partnership with Microsoft.
(SFC, 4/3/04, p.A1)
2004 Apr 2, In Brussels an
official ceremony welcomed Bulgaria, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia,
Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia into the NATO alliance.
(SFC, 4/3/04, p.A11)
2004 Apr 2, In Brazil Jociel
Conceicao dos Santos (20), a handyman, recanted a confession and
denied he killed an American couple (Nov 30, 2003). He blamed two
other Brazilians for the crime.
(AP, 4/2/04)
2004 Apr 2, Police in France
captured the elusive former leader of the Basque ETA rebel group as
well as the separatist group's logistics chief.
(AP, 4/2/04)
2004 Apr 2, Georgian
authorities reported that they had detained four men on suspicion of
plotting to assassinate the president, and officials accused the
autonomous province of Adzharia of being behind the alleged plot.
(AP, 4/2/04)
2004 Apr 2, In India a crowded
bus veered off a mountain road and fell into a ravine in
Jammu-Kashmir state, killing 34 passengers and injuring 35 others.
(AP, 4/2/04)
2004 Apr 2, Two Indian Air
Force fighter jets went missing and were believed to have crashed
during routine flights over Kashmir.
(AP, 4/2/04)
2004 Apr 2, PM Ariel Sharon
revealed the scope of his withdrawal plan, saying Israel will leave
all of the Gaza Strip and dismantle four West Bank settlements.
(AP, 4/2/04)
2004 Apr 2, Pakistan's 2-week
operation in South Waziristan wound down. The military said 63
foreign and local militants had been killed along with at least 46
security forces.
(SFC, 4/2/04, p.A11)
2004 Apr 2, A Spanish railroad
inspector found a 26-pound bomb hidden in a bag on a busy high-speed
line. Police said the device may contain the same dynamite used in
last month's Madrid train bombings.
(AP, 4/2/04)
2004 Apr 2, In Sri Lanka Pres.
Kumaratunga's political alliance won the most seats in parliamentary
elections, indicating deep popular support for its tough stance
toward Tamil Tiger rebels.
(AP, 4/3/04)(WSJ, 4/5/04, p.A1)

2005 Apr 2, In Florida Terri
Schiavo's body was cremated as disagreements continued between her
husband and her parents, who were unable to have their own
independent expert observe her autopsy.
(AP, 4/2/06)
2005 Apr 2, In southern
Afghanistan Taliban militants stormed a government building in Deshu
district and killed 3 Afghan soldiers in a two-hour gunbattle before
fleeing. A Western security source in Kandahar linked the attack to
an ongoing counter-narcotics drive in Helmand province and said
security was deteriorating there.
(AFP, 4/3/05)(SSFC, 4/3/05, p.A9)
2005 Apr 2, An Australian navy
helicopter crashed on the earthquake-devastated Indonesian island of
Nias. Media reported that nine people were killed and two were
rescued.
(AP, 4/2/05)
2005 Apr 2, Brazilian state
police detained 2 police officers in the Mar 31 shooting spree that
left 30 dead in Rio’s north side.
(SSFC, 4/3/05, p.A9)
2005 Apr 2, UN troops killed up
to 38 militia fighters during a raid by hundreds of peacekeepers
backed by helicopter gunships in the Ituri district of eastern
Congo.
(Reuters, 4/2/05)
2005 Apr 2, The Czech
information minister resigned, becoming the 4th Czech government
member to do so this week in fallout over a scandal surrounding PM
Stanislav Gross' luxury apartment.
(AP, 4/2/05)
2005 Apr 2, Ecuador's former
president Abdala Bucaram returned home after spending eight years in
exile in Panama, telling thousands that he plans to lead a
"revolution of the poor" modeled after President Hugo Chavez'
Venezuela.
(AP, 4/3/05)
2005 Apr 2, In central Iraq a
car bomb exploded, killing five people, including 4 police officers
on patrol. A gunmen killed an education official in Baghdad. A US
Marine was killed in Ramadi. 40-60 insurgents attacked the Abu
Ghraib prison but were repelled by US forces.
(AP, 4/2/05)(SSFC, 4/3/05, p.A3)
2005 Apr 2, Pope John Paul II,
born in Poland in 1920 as Karol Wojtyla, died in Rome at age 84. He
was elevated to Pope in 1978 and was the first non-Italian pope in
455 years. In November Viking published “John Paul the Great:
Remembering a Spiritual Father" by Peggy Noonan.
(AP, 4/2/05)(WSJ, 11/22/05, p.D8)
2005 Apr 2, President Robert
Mugabe's ruling party won 78 out of 120 contested seats in
Zimbabwe's disputed parliamentary elections, giving him enough seats
to press ahead with plans to change the constitution to strengthen
his grip on power. The Opposition for Democratic Change (MDC) won 35
seats.
(AP, 4/2/05)(SFC, 4/2/05, p.A12)(Reuters, 4/2/05)

2006 Apr 2, Thunderstorms
packing tornadoes and hail as big as softballs ripped through eight
US states, killing at least 27 people. Tennessee was hit hardest,
with tornadoes striking five western counties and killing 23 people,
including an infant. Severe thunderstorms, many producing tornadoes,
also struck parts of Iowa, Kentucky, Arkansas, Missouri, Ohio,
Illinois and Indiana. Strong wind was blamed or at least three
deaths in Missouri.
(AP, 4/3/06)
2006 Apr 2, It was reported
that Cecilia Fire Thunder, president of the Oglala Sioux Tribe in
South Dakota, had joined with 14 co-chairs to form the South Dakota
Campaign for Healthy Families. The group planned a referendum in
favor of abortion.
(SSFC, 4/2/06, p.A4)
2006 Apr 2, Alcatel SA and
Lucent Technologies Inc. said that the French telecom equipment
maker would acquire its US rival. The deal valued Lucent at about
$13.5 billion (11.1 billion euros) in a stock swap that would form a
major new global player. Headquarters would be in Paris and about
8,800 jobs would be cut.
(AP, 4/2/06)(Econ, 4/8/06, p.63)
2006 Apr 2, In Afghanistan
suspected Taliban militants shot dead 9 policemen and wounded three
others. Insurgents fatally shot a Turkish road engineer and burned
his body in Nimroz province.
(AP, 4/2/06)(WSJ, 4/3/06, p.A1)
2006 Apr 2, The World Health
Organization (WHO) confirmed that four Egyptians have caught bird
flu, including two who died from the virus.
(Reuters, 4/3/06)
2006 Apr 2, In France the
contested First Job Contract appeared in the Official Journal, where
new laws are recorded.
(WSJ, 4/3/06, p.A8)
2006 Apr 2, Iran announced its
second major new missile test within days, saying it has
successfully fired a high-speed torpedo called Hoot (whale), capable
of destroying huge warships and submarines.
(AP, 4/3/06)(SFC, 4/3/06, p.A3)
2006 Apr 2, Iraqi police
reported that at least 3 more bodies were found in several
neighborhoods of Baghdad. A Sunni clerical association announced
that gunmen had assassinated a Sunni Arab sheik, Abdul-Minaam Awad,
in his village of Zobaa 40 miles west of Baghdad. 6 insurgents died
while manufacturing a homemade bomb inside a house in Madain, about
15 miles southeast of Baghdad. Drive-by shooters killed a police
captain outside his home in Baghdad's Dora neighborhood. 5 Marines
were killed and one was injured when the seven-ton US military truck
rolled over in a flash food. 4 American troops were killed by
hostile fire. Gunmen killed a Shiite man and three of his relatives
at their home in southern Baghdad. Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice and British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw made a surprise trip
to Iraq to urge its leaders to form a unified government.
(AP, 4/2/06)(AP, 4/3/06)(AP, 4/2/07)
2006 Apr 2, Mauritanian
officials said a boat packed with West Africans trying to reach
Europe collided with a fishing vessel, leaving 32 of the migrants
missing and believed drowned.
(CP, 4/2/06)
2006 Apr 2, In Pakistan’s
neighboring South Waziristan the bullet-riddled body of Maulana
Zahir Shah, was found. The cleric was killed by suspected Islamic
militants over suspicion he was a spy for the US and Britain. Ten
people including five tribal police were killed and 13 injured in
separate bomb blasts in the restive southwestern Pakistani province
of Baluchistan.
(AP, 4/2/06)(AFP, 4/2/06)
2006 Apr 2, Thailand citizens
voted in snap parliamentary elections. Thailand's PM urged citizens
to ignore an opposition boycott, saying the vote was crucial to
ending the country's deepening political stalemate amid demands for
his resignation. Bombs exploded at three polling stations in restive
southern Thailand, injuring four soldiers and a police officer.
(AP, 4/2/06)
2006 Apr 2, In southeastern
Turkey one protester died after police opened fire to disperse
Kurdish demonstrators, raising the death toll in six days of street
violence to nine. A group of men stopped a passenger bus and tossed
gasoline bombs at it, sending the vehicle careening into pedestrians
and killing 3 in Istanbul as pro-Kurdish riots continued to spread.
The countrywide death toll from nearly a week of unrest climbed to
15.
(AP, 4/2/06)(AP, 4/3/06)

2007 Apr 2, The US asked Tehran
for information on the disappearance of a former FBI agent who went
missing on a private business trip to Iran.
(WSJ, 4/3/07, p.A1)
2007 Apr 2, The US Supreme
Court ruled that a US government agency, the EPA, has the power
under the clean air law to regulate greenhouse gas emissions that
spur global warming. In its first case on climate change, the
Supreme Court declared in a 5-4 ruling that carbon dioxide and other
greenhouse gases were air pollutants under the Clean Air Act.
(Reuters, 4/2/07)(AP, 4/2/08)(Econ, 2/12/11,
p.36)
2007 Apr 2, Florida won its
second consecutive college basketball championship, beating Ohio
State 84-75; the Gators became the first team to repeat since Duke
in 1991-92.
(AP, 4/2/08)
2007 Apr 2, Chicago’s police
superintendent, Philip Cline, announced his retirement after 2
videos emerged of off-duty police officers beating civilians.
(Econ, 10/20/07, p.42)(http://tinyurl.com/2tt8en)
2007 Apr 2, Sam Zell,
billionaire real estate investor, reached an agreement to buy the
Chicago-based Tribune Co. in a 2-stage deal valued at $8.2 billion.
The buyout was completed in December and saddled the firm with $8
billion in new debt. In 2008 the Tribune slid into bankruptcy.
(SFC, 4/3/07, p.C1)(Econ, 3/23/13, p.36)
2007 Apr 2, First Data Corp.
said it is being acquired by an affiliate of private equity firm
Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. for about $27 billion.
(SFC, 4/3/07, p.C3)
2007 Apr 2, In Afghanistan 3
police died when militants attacked a checkpoint on the road linking
the southern town of Kandahar with Spin Boldak on the
Pakistan-Afghanistan border.
(AP, 4/2/07)
2007 Apr 2, A UN conference on
climate change opened in Belgium with the EU's top environment
official calling on the US to join efforts to curb global warming.
(AP, 4/2/07)
2007 Apr 2, Canada's
controversial annual seal hunt opened in the southern Gulf of St.
Lawrence, where the worst ice conditions in more than two decades
have nearly wiped out the herd there.
(AP, 4/2/07)
2007 Apr 2, China’s first
deadline for income taxes was extended a few days because of low
compliance. Anyone earning over 120,000 yuan ($15,500) annually was
supposed to file a return. In southwestern China developers tore
down a stubborn couple's house after a three-year standoff that
hindered a construction project and captivated the nation. The
couple reportedly negotiated a deal with the real estate developer
that gives them a new apartment and a sizable compensation package.
(Econ, 4/14/07, p.49)(AP, 4/3/07)(Econ, 4/7/07,
p.39)
2007 Apr 2, In Iraq a suicide
truck bomber targeted a police station in the oil-rich northern city
of Kirkuk, killing at least 13 people and wounding dozens, including
many children from a nearby school. A parked car exploded in a
garage near a governmental property registration agency in western
Baghdad, killing three people and wounding 10. A suicide bomber
drove his car into a police checkpoint in the southern insurgent
stronghold of Dora, killing four people, including two policemen. A
roadside bomb killed four civilians and wounded 20 in the Shiite
town of Khalis. A roadside bomb struck an Iraqi military convoy,
killing one soldier and wounding 7 in the Qazaniyah area northeast
of Baghdad. 4 US soldiers were killed in combat.
(AP, 4/2/07)(Reuters, 4/3/07)
2007 Apr 2, Jordan's military
court convicted six alleged militants of planning suicide attacks
against Jordan's main international airport and against hotels
hosting Israeli and American tourists.
(AP, 4/2/07)
2007 Apr 2, Gunmen in Nigeria's
southern Bayelsa State kidnapped two Lebanese nationals.
(AP, 4/2/07)
2007 Apr 2, Around 5,000
tribesmen gathered in a Pakistani border area to enlist for ongoing
battles against foreign Al-Qaeda militants.
(AP, 4/2/07)
2007 Apr 2, Palestinian
journalists began a three-day strike to protest the kidnapping of
British Broadcasting Corp. correspondent Alan Johnston, the
longest-held reporter ever abducted in the Gaza Strip.
(AP, 4/2/07)
2007 Apr 2, Russia's foreign
spy service released previously classified files on a double agent
who, under the codename "Britt", passed secrets to Moscow from
inside British intelligence in the 1940s.
(AP, 4/2/07)
2007 Apr 2, Saudi Arabia
signaled it is unlikely to accept an Israeli invitation to a
regional peace conference, saying that Israel must first stop
mistreating Palestinians and move to withdraw from Arab lands.
(AP, 4/2/07)
2007 Apr 2, Tsunami waves
churned by an undersea earthquake crashed ashore in the Solomon
Islands, wiping away entire villages and triggering alerts from
Australia to Hawaii. At least 50 people were killed.
(AP, 4/3/07)(AP, 4/2/08)
2007 Apr 2, In Somalia a human
rights organization said fierce fighting between Ethiopian-backed
government forces and Islamic insurgents has killed 381 people over
four days.
(AP, 4/2/07)
2007 Apr 2, South Korea and the
US agreed to a trade pact with only minutes to go before a deadline.
Last-minute haggling meant missing two self-imposed deadlines over
the weekend. Some estimates say the agreement could add $20 billion
to the already more than $70 billion of two-way trade each year.
(Reuters, 4/2/07)
2007 Apr 2, In eastern Sri
Lanka at least 16 people, including three children, were killed and
25 wounded when a bomb ripped through a crowded bus. Sri Lankan
security forces killed at least 23 Tamil Tiger rebels in fresh
fighting in the island's east.
(AP, 4/2/07)(AFP, 4/3/07)
2007 Apr 2, In Sudan 53 people
were killed in a gruesome pair of minibus accidents north of
Khartoum.
(AP, 4/2/07)
2007 Apr 2, Thailand's premier
hailed ties with Japan as he prepared to sign a free-trade agreement
with his country's top investor, easing international isolation of
the kingdom since last year's coup. Army-installed PM Surayud
Chulanont will sign the deal April 3, which Thailand hopes will
boost investment from Japan.
(AFP, 4/2/07)
2007 Apr 2, Ukraine’s president
called early elections for May 27 amid a standoff with the
pro-Russian premier, who vowed to fight what he called a coup.
(WSJ, 4/3/07, p.A1)

2008 Apr 2, Arkansas Gov. Mike
Beebe singed legislation to repeal a botched marriage law, and
reinstated 17 as the minimum age to marry for boys and 16 for girls.
(AP, 4/3/08)
2008 Apr 2, In Arkansas 3 men
were presumed drowned when scaffolding underneath an Arkansas River
bridge collapsed. They were working on a project to install a water
main beneath the bridge for the Central Arkansas Water utility.
(AP, 4/3/08)
2008 Apr 2, Argentine farmers,
rebelling over soaring export taxes on their crops, declared a
30-day truce suspending a three-week-long strike that has stripped
grocery shelves of beef and produce, granting Cristina Fernandez a
reprieve in the first major crisis of her presidency.
(AP, 4/3/08)(WSJ, 4/3/08, p.A1)
2008 Apr 2, Australia began
pumping carbon dioxide underground to reduce greenhouse gas
emissions, using a technology that locks dangerous gases deep in the
Earth.
(AP, 4/2/08)
2008 Apr 2, Chad's main rebel
group urged former colonial ruler France to stop backing President
Idriss Deby Itno and cease flying over rebel positions in the
central African nation's restive east.
(AP, 4/2/08)
2008 Apr 2, Diplomats said that
China has given the UN nuclear watchdog intelligence linked to
Tehran's alleged attempts to make nuclear arms.
(AP, 4/2/08)
2008 Apr 2, Cubans snapped up
DVD players, motorbikes and pressure cookers for the first time as
Raul Castro's new government loosened controls on consumer goods and
invited private farmers to plant tobacco, coffee and other crops on
unused state land.
(AP, 4/2/08)
2008 Apr 2, Norberto Collado
Abreu, the helmsman of the Granma yacht that carried Fidel Castro
from Mexico to Cuba to launch his revolution in 1956, died in
Havana.
(AP, 4/2/08)
2008 Apr 2, Newspapers reported
that Egypt has ordered the seizure of the March 25 special edition
of the German news magazine Der Spiegel after it was deemed to be
insulting to Islam and the Prophet Mohammed.
(AFP, 4/2/08)
2008 Apr 2, France pledged to
send up to 1,000 troops to Afghanistan in a move that will avert a
Canadian threat to pull its contingent out of NATO's war in the
violent south.
(Reuters, 4/2/08)
2008 Apr 2, In northern Iraq, a
suicide bomber attacked an Iraqi checkpoint west of Mosul, killing
seven people, including a woman and a 5-year-old child. A US
airstrike destroyed a house in the southern city of Basra, killing a
militant, the US military said, and Iraqi witnesses and hospital
officials said at least three civilians were among the dead. A
roadside bomb targeting a US convoy exploded near a restaurant in
Baghdad's main Shiite district of Sadr City, killing at least 3
Iraqi civilians and wounding 13. 4 US-allied fighters were killed
and 4 others abducted at a fake checkpoint near Duluiyah.
(AP, 4/2/08)(AP, 4/3/08)
2008 Apr 2, Irish PM Bertie
Ahern, one of Europe's longest serving leaders, announced that he
will resign next month amid growing pressure over alleged financial
irregularities.
(AP, 4/2/08)
2008 Apr 2, In Kazakhstan
Zhaksybek Kulekeyev, a former government minister and head of the
state railway company, was formally charged with taking a $100,000
bribe.
(Econ, 4/12/08, p.49)
2008 Apr 2, Myanmar democracy
leader Aung San Suu Kyi's opposition party urged voters to reject a
military-backed draft constitution, saying it was undemocratic and
drafted under the junta's direct control.
(AP, 4/2/08)
2008 Apr 2, In New Zealand new
government population figures showed that the Asian population is
growing faster than any other ethnic group and will outnumber
indigenous Maori by 2026.
(AP, 4/2/08)
2008 Apr 2, Russia's foreign
minister said that Moscow will not allow newly independent Kosovo to
become a member of the UN.
(AP, 4/2/08)
2008 Apr 2, Pyotr Kuznetsov,
leader of a Russian doomsday cult, apparently tried to kill himself
after most of his followers abandoned a bunker where they had been
awaiting the end of the world for five months. The last 9 of 35 cult
members emerged on May 16.
(Reuters, 4/4/08)(SFC, 5/17/08, p.A3)
2008 Apr 2, In Sri Lanka
government troops captured a strip of land from Tamil Tigers. 2
civilians were shot dead by suspected Tamil Tiger rebels in the
Wilpattu wildlife park.
(AP, 4/2/08)
2008 Apr 2, Thailand's Health
Ministry ordered hospitals and medical clinics to temporarily stop
performing castrations for non-medical reasons, saying that the
procedure performed on transsexuals needs stricter monitoring.
(AP, 4/2/08)
2008 Apr 2, In Yemen security
forces killed one demonstrator and wounded four others in the fourth
day of rioting that has engulfed the country's south.
(AP, 4/2/08)
2008 Apr 2, In Zimbabwe the
main opposition party claimed outright victory for its leader Morgan
Tsvangirai, saying he had won 50.3 percent of the vote compared to
43.8 percent for President Robert Mugabe.
(AP, 4/2/08)

2009 Apr 2, Washington
expressed no interest in an offer by Venezuelan President Hugo
Chavez to take in any of the 240 remaining Guantanamo detainees
after they are released from the US military prison.
(AP, 4/2/09)
2009 Apr 2, A US federal judge
has ruled that some inmates at a US military base in Afghanistan can
challenge their detention in US courts, a legal right granted to
Guantanamo Bay prisoners.
(AFP, 4/3/09)
2009 Apr 2, US and Mexico
officials said they are creating a cross-border group to develop
strategies for stopping the illegal flow of guns and drugs between
the two countries.
(AP, 4/3/09)
2009 Apr 2, The director of the
US Mint unveiled the first US coin with an inscription in Spanish, a
quarter honoring Puerto Rico as the "Isla del Encanto" (Island of
Enchantment).
(AP, 4/2/09)
2009 Apr 2, The US
Environmental Working Group issued a press release drawing attention
to a study by scientists at the US Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention which looked for the chemical, perchlorate, in different
brands of powdered baby formula. The study was published last month.
(AP, 4/3/09)
2009 Apr 2, A federal grand
jury issued a 75-page indictment charging former Illinois Gov. Rod
Blagojevich with racketeering, extortion and fraud.
(SFC, 4/3/09, p.A8)
2009 Apr 2, In Connecticut a
judge, citing DNA evidence, dropped murder charges against Miguel
Roman, who served 20 years of a 60-year sentence after being
convicted of the 1988 slaying of Carmen Lopez (17), his pregnant
girlfriend. The same DNA tests that exonerated Roman implicated led
police in December to charge another man, Pedro Miranda of New
Britain. He is accused in the killings of Lopez, 16-year-old Rosa
Valentin in 1986 and 13-year-old Mayra Cruz in 1987. Miranda (51)
faced the possibility of the death penalty if convicted.
(SFC, 4/3/09, p.A6)
2009 Apr 2, Bud Shank (b.1926),
innovative jazz musician, died. He played the 33-second flute solo
on the 1965 hit “California Dreamin," by the Mamas and Papas.
(SFC, 4/10/09, p.B5)
2009 Apr 2, G20 countries
authorized the IMF to issue $250 billion in new SDRs.
(Econ, 4/11/09, p.70)
2009 Apr 2, Human rights groups
and some Afghan lawmakers criticized President Hamid Karzai for
signing into law legislation that some believe legalizes the rape of
a wife by her husband and prevents women from leaving the house
without a man's permission. Article 132 of the law says: "As long as
the husband is not traveling, he has the right to have sexual
intercourse with his wife every fourth night." Critics said Karzai
signed the legislation in the past month only for political gains
several months before the country's presidential election. Coalition
and Afghan forces killed 12 militants and one civilian in Logar
province in a mission that included airstrikes. a member of the
NATO-led force was killed in violence in the east. In central Ghazni
province, a roadside bomb killed four construction workers, while a
battle between militants and police elsewhere in the province killed
two militants.
(AP, 4/2/09)(AP, 4/3/09)
2009 Apr 2, Austrian
authorities arrested British-born Julius Meinl V (b.1959), head of
Meinl Bank, for suspected breach of trust and deception of investors
in a potential $4 billion fraud case involving a real estate fund
created by the bank. He had spun much of his family’s property
portfolio into Meinl European Land (MEL). By 2007 MEL had lost €1.8
billion in an attempt to support its share price. He was released
after posting a €100 million bail.
(Econ, 8/1/09, p.60)(WSJ, 4/3/09, p.C1)
2009 Apr 2, A Bangladesh
official said the government will strictly enforce a new ban on
begging that aims to fully eliminate it within five years.
(AP, 4/2/09)
2009 Apr 2, In London G20
leaders pledged $1.1 trillion in loans and guarantees to struggling
countries and agreed to crack down on tax havens and hedge funds,
but failed to reach sweeping accord on more stimulus spending to
attack the global economic decline.
(AP, 4/2/09)
2009 Apr 2, The annual Canadian
harp seal hunt opened. Up to 280,000 baby seals were expected to be
slaughtered in Quebec and Newfoundland.
(http://network.bestfriends.org/canada/news/13925.html)(SFC,
4/18/09, p.D12)
2009 Apr 2, Greek public
services closed down and transport was disrupted across the country
as thousands of workers went on strike to protest government
spending cuts.
(AP, 4/2/09)
2009 Apr 2, An Iraqi military
spokesman said the government will next week start paying Sunni
paramilitary groups in the Baghdad area despite weekend clashes with
one of the units. In Baghdad two gunmen firing from a car killed an
Iraqi army officer in the Mansour district. One of the gunmen was
killed and the other captured. Militants hurled a grenade at an
American patrol on Palestine Street in east Baghdad, wounding two
civilians. In Mosul a roadside bomb exploded near a small restaurant
frequented by police, wounding four of them and a civilian. A US
aircraft attacked a group of men believed to be members of a
government-allied Sunni paramilitary group as they were planting a
roadside bomb at night north of Baghdad, killing one and wounding
two. Two gay men were killed Sadr City by relatives who were shamed
by their behavior, after a leading cleric repeatedly condemned
homosexuality. The killings come weeks after Iraqi police found four
bodies near Sadr City with the word pervert written on their chests.
(AP, 4/2/09)(AP, 4/3/09)(AP, 4/4/09)
2009 Apr 2, Malaysia's PM
Abdullah Ahmad Badawi (69), in office for 5½ lackluster years,
resigned to make way for Deputy PM Najib Razak, who must now fix an
economy close to recession, heal the country's deep racial divisions
and revive a moribund ruling party.
(AP, 4/2/09)
2009 Apr 2, Mexico's Senate
unanimously approved legislation that would allow the government to
seize property from suspected drug traffickers and other criminals
before they are convicted.
(AP, 4/3/09)
2009 Apr 2, Morocco transferred
to Spain Hassan Al Haski, an Islamist convicted in both countries
for terrorist acts, apparently to resume serving time behind bars
there.
(AFP, 4/3/09)
2009 Apr 2, Pakistani
authorities ordered an investigation into a video showing a man
flogging a screaming woman in the country's northwest where the
government recently agreed to introduce Islamic law to end a
rebellion by Taliban militants. President Asif Ali Zardari was yet
to sign the bill introducing Islamic law in the Swat Valley. A
would-be suicide bomber shot himself dead when mourners confronted
him at the funeral of a Pakistani police officer recently killed by
militants.
(AP, 4/2/09)(AP, 4/3/09)
2009 Apr 2, A Palestinian
militant went on a rampage in the Bat Ayin Jewish settlement in the
West Bank, killing an Israeli boy (13) with a pickax and wounding
another boy (7) before fleeing the area. On April 14 Israeli
authorities detained suspect Moussa Tayet (26).
(AP, 4/2/09)(AP, 4/26/09)
2009 Apr 2, In the southern
Philippines Islamic militants released a Filipina Red Cross aid
worker, leaving a Swiss and an Italian still held captive.
(AFP, 4/2/09)
2009 Apr 2, In Puerto Rico FBI
agents and police arrested at least 35 suspects in an alleged drug
trafficking ring blamed for seven murders.
(AP, 4/2/09)
2009 Apr 2, In Sudan new US
special envoy Scott Gration told journalists he had come to "look,
learn and listen" and hoped for its friendship and cooperation,
indicating a shift in tone by Washington under President Barack
Obama.
(Reuters, 4/2/09)
2009 Apr 2, Venezuelan
authorities arrested retired Gen. Raul Baduel, a former defense
minister and a prominent critic of President Hugo Chavez, on
corruption charges. The former ally of Pres. Chavez went into
opposition 18 months earlier.
(AP, 4/2/09)(Econ, 4/11/09, p.36)

2010 Apr 2, The US economy
posted its largest job gain in three years in March, while the
unemployment rate remained at 9.7 percent for the third straight
month.
(AP, 4/2/10)
2010 Apr 2, A federal grand
jury in San Francisco indicted Michael Anthony Nelson (38) of
Orlando, Florida, on charges of mail fraud, wire fraud, computer
fraud and aggravated identity theft for allegedly hijacking a New
York attorney’s good name. In 1999 Nelson had stolen over $700,000
in loans by creating a fake bank and served 5 years in prison.
(SFC, 4/3/10, p.A1)
2010 Apr 2, In Minnesota a fire
swept through a 2-story building that housed several apartments and
an Irish pub killing 6 people including 3 children in Minneapolis.
(SFC, 4/3/10, p.A5)
2010 Apr 2, In Washington state
an explosion at a Tesoro Corp. refinery killed 4 people in
Anacortes, about 70 miles north of Seattle.
(SFC, 4/3/10, p.A5)
2010 Apr 2, In northern
Afghanistan 3 German soldiers were killed in heavy fighting and five
were severely wounded southwest of Kunduz city. German soldiers
traveling to the scene of the deadly firefight with Taliban
insurgents accidentally killed six Afghan troops.
(AP, 4/2/10)(AP, 4/3/10)
2010 Apr 2, Cambodia bristled
at a US decision to cut a small military aid program to protest the
December deportation of Muslim asylum seekers to China, saying if
they deserved protection the United States could have offered it.
(AP, 4/2/10)
2010 Apr 2, In northeastern
Central African Republic troops killed 10 rebels in a clash in the
region of Ndele. Teachers there were protesting the murder of a
pregnant teacher killed on March 30 by members of the Convention of
Patriots for Justice and Peace (CPJP), which was behind the attack
on the march. The Association of Residents of Upper Mbomou
(Assoredehmbo), grouping people in three eastern CAR districts, said
that the number of local people kidnapped by the LRA was more than
400, while the number killed in rebel attacks was more than 200
since February 2008. In an open letter to PM Faustin-Archange
Touadera the group recommended the forming of self-defense militias
and urged the government to set up an army base.
(AFP, 4/2/10)(AFP, 4/5/10)
2010 Apr 2, In Egypt former UN
nuclear watchdog chief Mohamed ElBaradei issued a public call for
change in defiance of an emergency law banning gatherings critical
of the authorities.
(Reuters, 4/2/10)
2010 Apr 2, Iran's top nuclear
envoy called for negotiations without threat of sanctions, following
meetings in Beijing in the wake of US reports saying China had
dropped its opposition to possible new UN measures against Iran.
(AP, 4/2/10)
2010 Apr 2, In Iraq Ammar
al-Hakim, who heads the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, offered
support for Ayad Allawi, a secular candidate for prime minister in
Iraq, a major blow to the incumbent Nouri al-Maliki. Gunmen trying
to pass themselves off as US and Iraqi soldiers raided a Sunni
village outside Baghdad and killed at least 24 people in an
execution-style attack.
(AP, 4/2/10)(http://tinyurl.com/yb6qm8d)
2010 Apr 2, It was reported
that researchers, at Israeli weapons maker Rafael, were putting the
final touches on a tank-mounted miniature anti-missile system,
Trophy, that detects incoming projectiles and shoots them down
before they reach tanks equipped with the system.
(AP, 4/2/10)
2010 Apr 2, In southern
Kazakhstan a Russian rocket carrying 2 Russian and one American
astronauts blasted off, kicking off a tightly packed schedule at the
International Space Station in the coming days.
(AP, 4/2/10)
2010 Apr 2, In Mexico 5 gunmen
died in a shootout with soldiers in the northern border city of
Reynosa, Tamaulipas state. A shootout between rival gangs at a
nightclub in Tampico left seven people dead. At least 15 people were
killed throughout Tamaulipas. In the border city of Tijuana police
found the bodies of 3 men who had been shot to death in a
residential area. 13 inmates escaped when armed men stormed a prison
in the northern border city of Reynosa. A shootout in Nuevo Laredo
between soldiers and suspected drug cartel gunmen killed two
children and wounded five of their relatives who were caught in the
crossfire. Two suspected gunmen were also killed.
(AP, 4/2/10)(AP, 4/3/10)(AP, 4/4/10)(AP, 4/6/10)
2010 Apr 2, Pakistan submitted
to parliament a sweeping package of landmark constitutional reforms,
stripping Pres. Asif Ali Zardari of key powers in a move to bolster
parliamentary democracy. Pakistan's attorney general resigned,
accusing the government of preventing him from carrying out Supreme
Court orders to reopen old graft investigations into Pres. Zardari.
(AFP, 4/2/10)
2010 Apr 2, In northeastern
Peru landslides caused by heavy rains hit Porvenir, killing at least
23 people and leaving 25 others missing. At least 54 people were
injured.
(AP, 4/2/10)
2010 Apr 2, In the Philippines
at least 23 devotees were nailed to crosses in San Fernando city to
mark Good Friday.
(SFC, 4/3/10, p.A2)
2010 Apr 2, The Russian
Kommersant newspaper reported that Dzhanet Abdurakhmanova (17) of
Dagestan, a widow of a slain Islamist rebel, was one of the two
female suicide bombers who attacked Moscow's subway on March 31. Her
husband, Umalat Magomedov, was described as an Islamist militant
leader killed by government forces in December. The paper said the
2nd subway bomber has been has been tentatively identified as Markha
Ustarkhanova (20) from Chechnya, the widow of a militant
leader killed last October while he was preparing to assassinate
Chechen Pres. Ramzan Kadyrov. The 2nd female was later identified as
Maryam Sharipova (28), a teacher from Dagestan.
(AP, 4/2/10)(AP, 4/6/10)
2010 Apr 2, Russia’s PM
Vladimir Putin made his first visit to Venezuela. Pres. Chavez,
ahead of the visit, said Russia has offered to help Venezuela set up
its own space industry, including a satellite launch site. Officials
planned to sign new agreements for energy projects in Venezuela, as
well as industrial, commercial and agriculture projects. Putin also
planned to hold talks with Bolivian President Evo Morales.
(AP, 4/2/10)
2010 Apr 2, UN
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon pushed Turkmenistan to improve its
human rights record, opening a trip through ex-Soviet Central Asia
where complaints of violations are extensive.
(AP, 4/2/10)
2010 Apr 2, In Yemen Elham Assi
(13) bled to death hours after she spoke to her mother and just days
after she was married to a 23-year-old man, in the deeply poor
village of Shueba. She was tied down and forced to have sex by her
husband, according to later interviews with the child's mother,
police and medical reports. A February 2009 law set the minimum age
for marriage at 17, but it was repealed and sent back to
parliament's constitutional committee for review after some
lawmakers called it un-Islamic. The committee is expected to make a
final decision on the legislation this month.
(AP, 4/10/10)

2011 Apr 2, In California the
Half Moon Bay City Council voted to shut down its police department
and turn its duties over to the San Mateo County Sheriff.
(SSFC, 4/3/11, p.A12)
2011 Apr 2, In New Mexico four
Gulfstream employees died in a crash of a test twin-engine business
aircraft at the airport in Roswell. In 2012 the National
Transportation Safety Board ruled that pressure to speed flight
tests for the new $65 million G650 was to blame for the crash.
(SSFC, 4/3/11, p.A9)(SFC, 10/12/12, p.A5)
2011 Apr 2, In Afghanistan at
least 10 people were killed and 83 wounded in Kandahar city, on a
2nd day of violent protests over the burning of a Koran by a radical
fundamentalist Christian in the US. A suicide attack also hit a NATO
military base in the capital Kabul. The attacks were sparked by the
actions of Christian preacher Terry Jones who supervised the burning
of the Koran in front of about 50 people at a church in Florida on
March 20.
(Reuters, 4/2/11)
2011 Apr 2, Azerbaijan police
arrested dozens of protesters who rallied for democratic reforms in
the authoritarian republic. Human rights activist Vivadi Iskenderov
was among those arrested in Baku. In August he was sentenced to
three years in prison for interfering in parliamentary elections. He
told the court that he is being persecuted for reporting vote
rigging in Azerbaijan's 2010 parliamentary election.
(AP, 4/2/11)(AP, 8/27/11)
2011 Apr 2, Brazil’s Veja
magazine, in its online edition, reported that at least 20 people
affiliated with al Qaeda as well as the Lebanese Shi'ite Muslim
group Hezbollah, the Palestinian group Hamas and two other
organizations have been hiding out in the South American country.
(Reuters, 4/2/11)
2011 Apr 2, Chinese officials
said over 500 of the country’s 1,176 dairies were being shut down in
an attempt to clean up the scandal-plagued dairy industry.
(SSFC, 4/3/11, p.A4)
2011 Apr 2, A Danish assault
team backed by helicopters freed 16 Pakistanis and 2 Iranians held
by suspected Somali pirates.
(SFC, 4/12/11, p.A2)
2011 Apr 2, In Germany several
thousand people took part in nation-wide demonstrations demanding an
end to nuclear power.
(SSFC, 4/3/11, p.A4)
2011 Apr 2, Indian police
charged a former telecom minister with abuse of power and conspiracy
in an alleged mobile spectrum fraud that cost the country billions
of dollars in lost revenue. A. Raja was also accused of cheating,
forgery and criminal misconduct on a charge sheet and annexed
documents that ran to 80,000 pages and were carried to New Delhi
court in seven steel trunks.
(AFP, 4/2/11)
2011 Apr 2, In India separatist
rebels in Assam state ambushed paramilitary soldiers on a patrol in
the insurgency-wracked northeast and fatally shot three of them.
(AP, 4/2/11)
2011 Apr 2, In southern Iraq 2
US soldiers were killed in a rocket attack that struck their unit.
(AP, 4/3/11)
2011 Apr 2, Israeli aircraft
killed 3 Palestinian militants who were planning to abduct Israelis
over the upcoming Jewish festival of Passover.
(AP, 4/2/11)
2011 Apr 2, In Ivory Coast an
offensive aiming to unseat strongman Laurent Gbagbo appeared to
encounter resistance, as soldiers loyal to the entrenched ruler
seized back the state television station and broadcast a call to
arms.
(AP, 4/2/11)
2011 Apr 2, In Japan highly
radioactive water spilled into the ocean from the tsunami-damaged
Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear complex as PM Naoto Kan surveyed the
damage in a town gutted by the wave.
(AP, 4/2/11)
2011 Apr 2, Libyan government
forces killed six civilians in the city of Misrata in an unrelenting
campaign aimed at driving rebels from the main city they hold in the
west. Rebels claimed victory in the battle for Brega as heavy
fighting ensued around the oil town. A British delegation arrived in
Benghazi, nearly a month after a special forces team was seized in a
bungled mission to contact the rebels. 13 rebels died in an air
strike near Brega.
(AP, 4/2/11)(AFP, 4/2/11)(AFP, 4/3/11)(AP,
4/7/11)
2011 Apr 2, Malawi officials
closed two university campuses indefinitely because of violent
protests over what students and professors call threats to academic
freedom.
(AP, 4/2/11)
2011 Apr 2, Malaysia's
government said it would allow Malay-language Bibles to be printed
locally, in a major concession to the country's minority Christian
community to soothe anger over seized shipments of their holy books.
(AP, 4/3/11)
2011 Apr 2, In Mexico Jose
Manuel Garcia Soto, alias "El Safado," or "The Crazy One," was
arrested in the northern state of San Luis Potosi for participating
in the Feb. 15 killing of Jaime Zapata and wounding of Victor Avila.
Both men were agents with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement
(ICE).
(AP, 4/5/11)
2011 Apr 2, In Mexico an
explosion and fire hit a factory that distills raw alcohol, killing
three people and injuring three others near Orizaba, Veracruz state.
(AP, 4/2/11)
2011 Apr 2, In Nicaragua at
least four police officers were injured in clashes as some 1000
demonstrators protested President Daniel Ortega's bid to win
re-election.
(AP, 4/3/11)
2011 Apr 2, Nigeria postponed
parliamentary elections until April 4 after voting materials failed
to arrive in many areas, a major blow to hopes of a break with a
history of chaotic polls. Attackers stormed three villages In
central Nigeria killing at least two people and setting a number of
houses ablaze.
(Reuters, 4/2/11)(AFP, 4/3/11)
2011 Apr 2, In Northern Ireland
Catholic officer Ronan Kerr (25) was killed by a bomb placed under
his car outside his home in Omagh, the scene of Northern Ireland's
worst ever terror atrocity. He had completed his training only three
weeks ago. A 33-year-old man was later charged with
terrorism-related offences related to the mruder. On May 10 police
arrested a woman in connection with the car bomb.
(AFP, 4/3/11)(AFP, 5/10/11)
2011 Apr 2, In Oman dozens of
protesters staged a sit-in in Muscat to demand probes into alleged
state abuses after clashes with security forces in Sohar left at
least one person dead and sharply boosted tensions in the strategic
Gulf nation.
(AP, 4/2/11)
2011 Apr 2, Peruvian officials
said a British couple has been arrested at Lima's international
airport as they boarded a plane to London with over 11 kg of cocaine
and 100 heroin capsules. Roxana Laercia (37) stashed the cocaine (24
pounds) between her clothes and Michael Eguonoghen (28) had
swallowed the heroin capsules, the equivalent of 1.5 kg (3.3
pounds).
(AFP, 4/3/11)
2011 Apr 2, South African judge
Richard Goldstone said he had been wrong to say Israel had targeted
civilians in his 2009 report on Israel’s 2008-2998 offensive in
Gaza. He had faced down enormous criticism in Israel at the time
over the report which accused both Israel and the Hamas rulers of
Gaza of potential war crimes during the 22-day conflict. He said his
assessment had also been changed by the fact that whereas Israel had
thoroughly investigated the concerns raised by his panel, Hamas had
not.
(AFP, 4/3/11)
2011 Apr 2, In Spain tens of
thousands of people demonstrated in the troubled Basque region,
calling for the government to legalize a new pro-independence party
that says it rejects violence by armed separatist group ETA.
(AP, 4/2/11)
2011 Apr 2, Swedish wireless
equipment maker LM Ericsson said it is suing Chinese rival ZTE Corp.
for alleged infringement of several of its patents in handset and
network technology.
(AP, 4/2/11)
2011 Apr 2, Syrian security
forces made dawn arrests as mourners prepared to bury the first of
at least nine people killed in anti-government protests on the
Muslim day of rest.
(AFP, 4/2/11)
2011 Apr 2, In the UAR Iftikhar
Ahmed Khan was shot five times in the head in Ajman, an emirate east
of Dubai where he was operating a construction company. Khan, a
former mayor of Haripur town in northwestern Pakistan, was held in
the 2008 slaying of a provincial official in the region. He was
granted bail and left for the UAE.
(AP, 4/4/11)
2011 Apr 2, In Yemen thousands
of anti-government protesters hurled stones at anti-riot police
backed by tanks in the southern province of Aden.
(AP, 4/2/11)

2012 Apr 2, The United States
announced a $10 million bounty on Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, the founder
of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the Islamist terror group blamed for the
2008 Mumbai attacks. He lived openly in Pakistan. Washington also
posted a $2 million reward for Hafiz Abdul Rahman Makki, described
as LeT's second-in-command.
(AFP, 4/3/12)
2012 Apr 2, US Immigration and
Customs Enforcement said it has arrested 3,168 criminal aliens and
fugitives in a six-day nationwide sweep in every state including
Puerto Rico and The District of Colombia.
(ABCNews, 4/2/12)
2012 Apr 2, The Bill and
Melinda Gates Foundation gave a $12-million grant to a project aimed
at boosting yam production and doubling the income of west African
farmers of the crop. The initial focus is on 200,000 smallholder
farm families in Ghana and Nigeria.
(AFP, 4/2/12)
2012 Apr 2, US federal agents
raided the Oakland, Ca., business and apartment of Richard Lee, the
wheelchair-bound founder of Oaksterdam Univ.
(SFC, 4/3/12, p.A1)
2012 Apr 2, In Oakland,
California, gunman One Goh (43) opened fire at the Christian Oikos
University, a small private school, which serves the Korean
community with courses from theology to Asian medicine. 7 people
were killed, and 3 more wounded. A manhunt ended hours later with
his capture at a shopping center. On Jan 7, 2013, a judge ruled that
Goh was incompetent to stand trial because of paranoid
schizophrenia. On May 2, 2017, Goh pleaded no contest to all charges
in the rampage.
(AP, 4/2/12)(SFC, 4/3/12, p.A1)(SFC, 1/8/13,
p.A1)(SFC, 5/3/17, p.D1)
2012 Apr 2, San Francisco
police evicted nearly 80 Occupy activists from a building owned by
the Catholic Archdiocese of SF.
(SFC, 4/3/12, p.C1)
2012 Apr 2, In Louisville,
Kentucky, Mary Montfort (54) pleaded guilty to embezzling over
$360,000 from the Little sister of the Poor charity. She faced up to
3 years in prison.
(SFC, 4/3/12, p.A7)
2012 Apr 2, Sculptor and
printmaker Elizabeth Catlett (b.1915), a US expatriate renowned for
her dignified portrayals of African-American and Mexican women, died
in Cuernavaca, Mexico. She was barred from her home country for
political activism during the McCarthy era. In 1962 the US State
Department banned her from returning to the United States for nearly
a decade because of her political affiliations.
(AP, 4/3/12)
2012 Apr 2, America’s Federal
Trade commission (FTC) voted 3-1 to let Express Scripts acquire
Medco, America’s 2nd-biggest and biggest pharmacy managers.
(Econ, 4/7/12, p.76)
2012 Apr 2, In Afghanistan a
motorcycle bomb killed one police officer and wounded two others in
Kandahar city. Twin bomb blasts in the city of New Baghlan wounded
23 people, including eight police officers near a market selling
computer equipment. Insurgents attacked a checkpoint in the Nahri
Sarraj district of Helmand province. Four police officers were
killed and two were wounded in the attack. The bodies of two
civilians also were found at the checkpoint. Insurgents killed three
police officers and abducted 11 in an attack on a checkpoint in
Wardoj district of Badakhshan province.
(AP, 4/2/12)(AP, 4/3/12)
2012 Apr 2, Human Rights Watch
urged Angolan authorities to end their violent crackdown on
anti-government protests, which have mushroomed this year ahead of
polls.
(AFP, 4/2/12)
2012 Apr 2, China International
Mining Group Corporation said it will invest $21.2 million (€15.8
million) to restart the Bindura Nickel Corporation's Trojan mine in
Zimbabwe, which closed in 2008 during the country’s political
turmoil.
(AFP, 4/2/12)
2012 Apr 2, Colombia's main
rebel group (FARC) freed what it says were its last 10 military and
police captives, a goodwill gesture that President Juan Manuel
Santos praised but called insufficient to merit a peace dialogue.
(AP, 4/2/12)
2012 Apr 2, Egypt's official
MENA news agency reported that the Coptic Orthodox church has
decided to boycott an Islamist-dominated panel charged with drafting
the future constitution.
(AFP, 4/2/12)
2012 Apr 2, Hungarian President
Pal Schmitt (69) resigned because of a plagiarism scandal regarding
a doctoral dissertation he had written 20 years ago.
(AP, 4/2/12)
2012 Apr 2, Iraq said that
Qatar hosting fugitive Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi was
"unacceptable" and called on Doha to hand him over, a demand he said
was unconstitutional after talks with Qatar's emir.
(AFP, 4/2/12)
2012 Apr 2, Iraq’s Kurdish
region said it has halted oil exports over a payment quarrel with
the central government, which reportedly has failed to send any
money since May even as the region has been exporting 50,000 barrels
per day.
(SFC, 4/3/12, p.A2)
2012 Apr 2, Ireland estimated
that about 50% of its 1.6 million homeowners failed to pay a new,
flat-rate $133 property tax by the march 31 deadline.
(SFC, 4/3/12, p.A2)
2012 Apr 2, The Israeli
military ordered dozens of Jewish settlers to evacuate a three-story
building they occupied last week in Hebron, the West Bank's most
volatile city, saying they had entered it without receiving approval
from defense authorities. Israel's Supreme Court threw out an appeal
by a Palestinian family seeking to block construction of Jewish
settler homes on a site owned by the family for generations
(AP, 4/2/12)(AFP, 4/3/12)
2012 Apr 2, A Libyan police
brigade moved to quell clashes that broke out between two rival
towns, brokering a cease-fire and securing the release of hostages.
The fighting erupted after fighters from Ragdalein said they took 34
brigade men hostage from the neighboring town of Zwara a day
earlier.
(AP, 4/2/12)
2012 Apr 2, In Mali the junta
was slapped with crippling sanctions from its neighbors demanding a
return to constitutional rule. (ECOWAS) slapped Mali with a total
embargo and cut off the putschists from the regional central bank,
affecting their ability to pay public wages.
(AFP, 4/3/12)
2012 Apr 2, In Nigeria gunmen
shot dead a secret police officer at a barber's shop in the
northeastern city of Maiduguri.
(AFP, 4/2/12)
2012 Apr 2, In Pakistan dozens
of Taliban militants coming from Afghanistan attacked border posts
in Olai, part of the Mohmand tribal area, killing four paramilitary
soldiers. Soldiers reportedly retaliated, killing 15 militants.
(AP, 4/2/12)
2012 Apr 2, A Pakistani court
convicted Osama bin Laden's three widows and two of his daughters of
illegally entering and living in the country and sentenced them to
45 days in prison, with credit for time served.
(AP, 4/2/12)
2012 Apr 2, A Russian passenger
plane, an ATR-72 turboprop operated by UTair, crashed into a snowy
field in Siberia shortly after takeoff from Tyumen, killing 31 of
the 43 people on board. The 12 survivors were hospitalized in
serious condition.
(AP, 4/2/12)
2012 Apr 2, Senegal's new
President Macky Sall was sworn in as leader of the west African
nation.
(AFP, 4/3/12)
2012 Apr 2, The Swazi home
affairs minister said King Mswati III, Africa's last absolute
monarch, has ordered his impoverished subjects to give him cows for
his birthday celebrations on April 19. Mswati was rated by Forbes
magazine as among the world's 15 richest monarchs, with a personal
fortune of more than $100 million. He has 13 wives, each with their
own palace.
(AFP, 4/2/12)
2012 Apr 2, Syria pressed its
deadly bid to crush dissent, reportedly targeting rebels near Turkey
as it brushed off an Istanbul meeting of the "Friends of Syria" as a
failure. Violence across the country killed at least 18 people.
Gunmen in Aleppo attacked the home of the head of military
institutions late today and killed two guards.
(AFP, 4/2/12)(AP, 4/3/12)
2012 Apr 2, In Turkey Neslisah
Osmanoglu (b.1921), an Ottoman princess who married an Egyptian
prince (1940), died. She was twice forced into exile when both royal
households were abolished.
(AFP, 4/3/12)
2012 Apr 2, UN-Arab League
envoy Kofi Annan said Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had accepted
an April 10 deadline to start implementing a peace plan, as more
than 30 people died in new clashes.
(AFP, 4/2/12)

2013 Apr 2, Pres. Obama
unveiled the so-called Brain Initiative, a plan to map the human
brain and study how it is wired up at all levels.
(SFC, 4/3/13, p.A1)
2013 Apr 2, In Arizona the
Bisbee City Council approved an ordinance recognizing civil unions
for same-sex couples. State Attorney General Tom Horne said the next
day that he would go to court to block the artist’s community’s
ordinance.
(SFC, 4/4/13, p.A6)
2013 Apr 2, In Oakland, Ca.,
Quinn Boyer (34), a Santa Clara County paramedic, was shot as
teenagers attempted to hijack his car. He died of his wounds two
days later. On April 18 Christian Burton (16) was charged as an
adult with special circumstances murder. 5 other teenagers (13-15)
were charged as juveniles.
(SFC, 4/19/13, p.D5)
2013 Apr 2, Six New York
politicians were arrested for their alleged role in a bribery
scandal in which Democratic state Senator Malcolm Smith paid 5 top
Republicans for permission to run on their ticket in NYC’s city's
upcoming mayoral race.
(Reuters, 4/2/13)
2013 Apr 2, In Texas inmates
Brian Allen Tucker and John Martin King, both with long criminal
histories, escaped a jail in Sulphur Springs.
(SFC, 4/3/13, p.A4)
2013 Apr 2, In Utah
survivalist Troy James Knapp (45) was arrested after eluded
authorities for 6 years. He had moved from cabin to cabin across the
Utah mountains, taking food and weapons and leaving notes to brag
about it.
(AP, 4/3/13)
2013 Apr 2, Virginia state
police arrested Charles R. Smith III, a former volunteer
firefighter, and his girlfriend for all but a handful of the 77
arsons set on Virginia's Eastern Shore over the past five months.
(AP, 4/2/13)
2013 Apr 2, Cyprus finance
minister Michalis Sarris resigned after only 5 weeks on the job. He
had agreed in negotiations with the EU to impose a “haircut" on
samll savers with less than €100,000 in their accounts.
(Econ, 4/16/13, p.61)
2013 Apr 2, In India the film
actors of Tamil Nadu held an anti-Sri Lanka hunger strike. Most of
the state’s 72 million people are ethnic Tamils.
(Econ, 4/6/13, p.51)
2013 Apr 2, Israeli prison
guards fired tear gas to quell disturbances in cell blocks after
Palestinian prisoners protested following the news of a fellow
inmate's death of cancer. Maysara Abu Hamdiyeh (64), who died
earlier today, was serving a life sentence for his role in a foiled
attempt to bomb a busy cafe in Jerusalem in 2002.
(AP, 4/2/13)
2013 Apr 2, Staff members at
Libya's state TV news channel suspended work indefinitely after an
employee was allegedly assaulted by a member of a militia guarding
their building.
{Libya, Journalism}
(AP, 4/2/13)
2013 Apr 2, In Mexico taco
vendor Carlos Sanchez (36) was shot and wounded after he resisted a
kidnapping in Teloloapan, Guerrero state. He and his wife and sister
and cousin, Armando de la Cruz, were then kidnapped by state police
as they drove to Iguala for medical assistance. Carlos and Armando
were later killed at the hands of the police.
{Mexico}
(SFC, 11/28/15, p.A12)
2013 Apr 2, In Myanmar a
pre-dawn fire swept a religious dormitory, killing 13 children in
eastern Yangon.
(AP, 4/2/13)
2013 Apr 2, North Korea said it
will restart its long-shuttered plutonium reactor and increase
production of nuclear weapons material. Outsiders saw this as North
Korea’s latest attempt to extract US concessions.
(AP, 4/2/13)
2013 Apr 2, In northwestern
Pakistan several dozen militants armed with assault rifles and
rocket-propelled grenades attacked a power grid station, killing 7
people and taking 4 hostage on the outskirts of Peshawar. Attackers
threw a grenade at a vehicle carrying paramilitary security officers
in Karachi, killing three of them and wounding three others.
(AP, 4/2/13)(AP, 4/3/13)
2013 Apr 2, Philippine
authorities arrested 16 Taiwanese, 15 males and a female, in
connection with an online scam that mostly targeted retirees living
in China and Taiwan.
(AP, 4/3/13)
2013 Apr 2, South Africa said
most of its 200 troops in the Central African Republic have been
withdrawn from the country where 13 died as rebels ousted the
president.
(AP, 4/2/13)
2013 Apr 2, Syrian activists
reported heavy government shelling and air raids in Damascus and its
suburbs. They also reported heavy shelling of rebel-held areas in
the central city of Homs and the northern city of Aleppo.
(AP, 4/2/13)
2013 Apr 2, A Tibetan spokesman
said Jigme Gyatso, a noted political prisoner, was released by
Chinese authorities after 17 years in prison on charges of
endangering national security and separatism.
(SFC, 4/3/13, p.A2)
2013 Apr 2, The 193-nation UN
General Assembly overwhelmingly approved the first treaty on the
global arms trade, which seeks to regulate the $70 billion business
in conventional arms and keep weapons out of the hands of human
rights abusers. The Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) will come into legal
force 90 days after the 50th country has ratified it.
(Reuters, 4/2/13)(Econ, 4/6/13, p.69)

2014 Apr 2, A federal appeals
court granted a temporary stay on Arizona’s new restrictions on the
use of abortion drugs, which had gone into effect a day earlier.
(SFC, 4/3/14, p.A8)
2014 Apr 2, In Detroit,
Michigan, Steve Utash (54) was punched and kicked by several people
as he stopped to check on a boy (10) who was struck when he stepped
in front of Utash’s pickup truck. On Apr 12 a boy (16) was charged
with assault and ethnic intimidation in the beating of Utash, who
remained in critical condition. On June 16, 2014, Bruce Wimbush (18)
acknowledged that he punched Utash during the attack and agreed to
testify against others. On June 19 three others pleaded guilty to
the assault on Utash. On July 7, 2014, Wonzey Saffold (30) was
sentenced to up to ten years in prison for his role in the attack.
(SSFC, 4/13/14, p.A8)(SFC, 6/17/14, p.A7)(SFC,
6/20/14, p.A6)(SFC, 7/8/14, p.A5)
2014 Apr 2, In Texas soldier
Ivan Lopez gunned down 3 people before killing himself at the Fort
Hood Army base. He was under psychiatric care but had showed no
signs of violence or suicidal tendencies.
(AP, 4/3/14)
2014 Apr 2, Washington DC
Councilwoman Muriel Bowser defeated Mayor Vincent Gray in a mayoral
primary leaving Gray to serve nine months as a lame duck. Weeks
earlier federal prosecutors said Gray knew of an illegal $668,000
slush fund that helped him defeat incumbent Adrian Fenty in 2010.
(SFC, 4/3/14, p.A11)
2014 Apr 2, In Washington state
the official death toll from the March 22 mudslide, based on the
number of victims' remains sent to the coroner's office, rose to 29,
up from 28 a day earlier.
(Reuters, 4/2/14)
2014 Apr 2, In Afghanistan a
suicide bomber wearing a military uniform killed 6 police officers
inside the heavily fortified Interior Ministry compound in Kabul.
Candidate Hussain Nazari and 8 members of his entourage were killed
overnight by their abductors in Sar-i-Pul province.
(AP, 4/2/14)
2014 Apr 2, Britain summoned
the Spanish ambassador to condemn what it called a provocative
incursion by Spanish boats into Gibraltar's territorial waters a day
earlier.
(Reuters, 4/2/14)
2014 Apr 2, British authorities
warned people with heart or lung conditions to avoid exertion as a
combination of European emissions and Sahara dust created a "perfect
storm" of pollution that blanketed the country in smog.
(AP, 4/2/14)
2014 Apr 2, In Chile a
7.6-magnitude aftershock struck just before midnight. No new major
damage or casualties were reported.
(AP, 4/3/14)
2014 Apr 2, In southern China
local authorities said torrential rains have left 14 people dead.
Rains have battered Guangdong and Hong Kong since March 29,
grounding some flights in Guangzhou and Shenzhen.
(AP, 4/2/14)
2014 Apr 2, In Croatia Marina
Lovric Merzel, prefect of Sisak county for the ruling Social
Democrat party, was arrested on corruption charges.
(Reuters, 4/2/14)
2014 Apr 2, In Egypt a series
of explosions outside Cairo University killed two people, including
a police brigadier-general.
(Reuters, 4/2/14)
2014 Apr 2, The EU and the US
sought ways to reduce the political clout Russia gets from its vast
energy reserves by promising to wean Ukraine and the rest of the
continent off those supplies.
(AP, 4/2/14)
2014 Apr 2, The European
Union's antitrust authority said it is imposing a 302 million-euro
($416 million) fine against 11 producers of high voltage power
cables for operating a cartel. Six European companies, three
Japanese and two South Korean producers reportedly colluded to
allocate customers between themselves from 1999 for about 10 years
on an almost worldwide scale.
(AP, 4/2/14)
2014 Apr 2, A study by Europe’s
Red List of the International Union for Conservation of Nature
(IUCN) said almost a quarter of Europe's bumblebees are at risk of
extinction due to loss of habitats and climate change, threatening
pollination of crops worth billions of dollars.
(Reuters, 4/2/14)
2014 Apr 2, Germany's antitrust
authority said it has fined a group of brewers 231.2 million euros
($319 million) for allegedly fixing the price of beer, the second
round of punishments it has made in the case.
(AP, 4/2/14)
2014 Apr 2, Germany’s
Chancellor Angela Merkel's Cabinet approved a national minimum wage,
guaranteeing workers at least 8.50 euros per hour ($11.75) starting
next year.
(AP, 4/2/14)
2014 Apr 2, Lufthansa canceled
almost 900 domestic and intercontinental flights after the pilots'
union started a three-day strike in a wage dispute with Germany's
largest airline.
(AP, 4/2/14)
2014 Apr 2, In Iraq a series of
bombings killed 8 people, including army recruits, as the country
prepared for April 30 parliamentary elections.
(AP, 4/2/14)
2014 Apr 2, Italian police
arrested 24 alleged separatists for terrorism after thwarting a plan
to take over St Mark's Square in Venice armed with guns and a
rudimentary "tank" made from a digger.
(AFP, 4/2/14)
2014 Apr 2, Kazakhstan PM Seri
Akhmetov (55) unexpectedly announced his resignation and was swiftly
replaced by Karim Masimov (49), his influential predecessor. Masimov
had stepped down as prime minister in 2012 after occupying the
position for five years, during which he shepherded the country's
economy through the global financial crisis.
(AP, 4/2/14)
2014 Apr 2, Lebanese troops
moved into a restive Sunni area in the northern city of Tripoli, in
the second stage of a plan aimed at quelling deadly Syria-linked
violence there.
(AFP, 4/2/14)
2014 Apr 2, In Libya employees
at state-owned Jumhuriya, one of Libya's biggest banks, began a
two-day strike demanding greater protection after a colleague was
shot dead at work a day earlier.
(Reuters, 4/2/14)
2014 Apr 2, Palestinian foreign
minister Riyad al-Malki said he has delivered requests for
membership of several UN agencies, as part of a move that shook a
fragile Middle East peace process.
(AFP, 4/2/14)
2014 Apr 2, Suspected Filipino
Abu Sayyaf insurgents seized Gao Huayuan (29) a Chinese tourist, and
Marcy Dayawan (40), a hotel receptionist, from the Singamata Reef
Resort in eastern Malaysia and then fled in a speed boat. The
kidnappers soon demanded a ransom of 500 million pesos ($11.3
million). On May 30 Malaysia’s PM Najib Razak said both victims have
been freed.
(AP, 4/3/14)(AFP, 4/5/14)(AP, 4/10/14)(AP,
5/30/14)
2014 Apr 2, Qatar's emir held
talks in Sudan at a time of strained ties with his country's Gulf
neighbors over its perceived support for the Egypt-based Muslim
Brotherhood. After the emir's departure, Sudan's Finance Minister
Badraldin Mahmoud Abbas told reporters that Qatar will provide Sudan
with $1 billion to help boost its reserves of hard currency.
(AFP, 4/2/14)
2014 Apr 2, A Russian soldier
shot dead Ukrainian naval officer Stanislav Karachevsky in eastern
Crimea, the second Ukrainian death reported since Russia took
control of the Black Sea peninsula.
(Reuters, 4/7/14)
2014 Apr 2, A Saudi Arabian
court sentenced Faris al-Zahrani, a top al-Qaeda strategist, to
death and jailed 15 others for their role in a series of attacks in
the kingdom last decade. Zahrani was arrested in Abha, a city near
the Yemeni border, in August 2004.
(Reuters, 4/3/14)
2014 Apr 2, The Swiss
government said it has decided not to adopt European Union sanctions
against 33 people in connection with Russia's annexation of Crimea,
but will prevent them from using Switzerland to get around the visa
bans and asset freezes.
(AP, 4/2/14)
2014 Apr 2, In Syria Brahim
Benchakroun, a former Guantanamo detainee, was reportedly killed
while fighting government forces in Latakia province. He was better
known in Syria as Abu Ahmad al-Maghribi.
(AP, 4/3/14)
2014 Apr 2, In Thailand workers
at a scrap shop in Bangkok accidentally detonated a large bomb
believed to have been dropped during World War II, killing at least
7 people and injuring 19 others.
(AP, 4/2/14)
2014 Apr 2, Ukraine took the
first step toward granting more powers to the regions in line with
Western wishes but stopped well short of creating the federation
sought by Russia.
(AFP, 4/2/14)
2014 Apr 2, Ukraine's ousted
president, Viktor Yanukovych, said that he was "wrong" to invite
Russian troops into Crimea, and vowed to try to persuade Russia to
return the Black Sea peninsula.
(AP, 4/2/14)
2014 Apr 2, In Yemen al-Qaeda
attacked an army headquarters in a heavily patrolled district of
Aden, leaving 11 people dead, including three attackers, despite
recent government measures to improve security.
(AFP, 4/2/14)

2015 Apr 2, A US jury ordered
automaker Chrysler to pay $150 million to the family of a
four-year-old boy who was killed when their Jeep exploded into
flames. Remington Walden was killed in March 2012 in the US state of
Georgia when a car rear-ended the 1999 Jeep Grand Cherokee he was
in, causing the fuel tank behind the car's rear axle to leak and set
the car on fire.
(AP, 4/3/15)
2015 Apr 2, In Alabama
Jefferson County Circuit Court Judge Laura Petro dismissed all
charges against Anthony Ray Hinton after he spent close to three
decades in jail over the 1985 murder of two men in two separate
restaurant hold-ups.
(AFP, 4/2/15)
2015 Apr 2, The US states of
Arkansas and Indiana passed amended versions of religious freedom
laws following a nationwide outcry that the original legislation
effectively legalized discrimination against homosexuals.
(AFP, 4/2/15)
2015 Apr 2, Rev. Robert
Schuller (88), southern California televangelist, died in Artesia.
His “Hour of Power," inaugurated in 1970, became the nation’s most
watched weekly religious program in the 1980s. His Crystal Cathedral
in Garden Grove opened in 1980.
(SFC, 4/3/15, p.A12)
2015 Apr 2, In Florida three Ku
Klux Klan members, who worked in a state prison, were arrested on
conspiracy to commit murder. They had allegedly plotted to kill a
black inmate after his release in retaliation for a fight.
(SFC, 4/3/15, p.A7)
2015 Apr 2, In Hawaii police
arrested 20 protesters as some 300 gathered at Mauna Kea to protest
the construction of a new telescope. Eleven more arrested at the top
of the peak.
(SFC, 4/4/15, p.A4)
2015 Apr 2, In NYC Noelle
Velentzas and Asia Siddiqui were arrested on charges they plotted to
wage violent jihad by building a homemade bomb and using it for a
Boston Marathon-type attack.
(AP, 4/2/15)
2015 Apr 2, In Oklahoma Eric
Courtney Harris, a black man, died after being shot by Robert
Charles Bates (73), a white deputy, after selling drugs to an
undercover officer in Tulsa County. The reserve deputy in an
apparent error used a gun instead of an intended Taser.
(SFC, 4/13/15, p.A5)
2015 Apr 2, Delphi Corp.
announced that an autonomous car, equipped by the company, had
completed a 3,400 mile coast-to-coast US road trip with 99% of the
trip driven without human assistance.
(SFC, 4/3/15, p.C3)
2015 Apr 2, In eastern
Afghanistan a suicide bomber attacked an anti-corruption
demonstration, killing 17 people and wounding up to 60 in Khost. In
Helmand province the police chief of a restive district was killed
by a roadside bomb.
(AP, 4/2/15)(Reuters, 4/2/15)
2015 Apr 2, Albania’s The
parliament voted overwhelmingly to lift immunity for Mark Frroku
following an international arrest warrant issued for him by Belgian
prosecutors relating to the 1999 murder of Aleksander Kurti in
Brussels.
(AP, 4/2/15)
2015 Apr 2, In Brazil 5 people
were killed when their helicopter crashed into a house on the
outskirts of Sao Paulo. The dead included Thomaz Rodrigues Alckmin
(31), the son of Sao Paulo state Gov. Geraldo Alckmin.
(AP, 4/3/15)
2015 Apr 2, Canadian
authorities said seven members of an Asia-based organized crime
syndicate have been arrested for exploiting more than 500 women
mostly from China and Korea in a prostitution ring that spanned the
country.
(AP, 4/3/15)
2015 Apr 2, In China Guangdong
police arrested 22 people after demonstrators forced their way into
a high-speed rail station in a protest about land and housing
issues.
(Reuters, 4/4/15)
2015 Apr 2, The Cyprus
parliament legislated to criminalize the denial of the massacre of
an estimated 1.5 million Armenians by Ottoman Turks a century ago.
(AP, 4/2/15)
2015 Apr 2, Dubai-based port
operator DP World said it has reached a deal to acquire the Fairview
container terminal in Canada from Deutsche Bank for 580 million
Canadian dollars, or about $457 million.
(AP, 4/2/15)
2015 Apr 2, Jihadists in
Egypt's Sinai killed 15 soldiers and 3 civilians in attacks on five
checkpoints. Military sources said 15 militants also died in an
exchange of fire but the toll could not be verified by medics. The
Islamic State's branch in Egypt soon claimed responsibility.
(AFP, 4/2/15)(AP, 4/3/15)
2015 Apr 2, In France two men,
who worked as cleaners for a pair of elderly sisters, were detained
for stealing hundreds of thousands of euros the women kept in cash
in their home near Lyon. A two-year police investigation had begun
shortly after the bodies of the sisters were discovered in their
home in the suburb of Bron in April 2013.
(AFP, 4/5/15)
2015 Apr 2, In Greece
supporters of 21 hunger strikers in prisons said they have refused
to give up their month-long protest against anti-terrorism laws,
despite concessions promised by the country's new left-wing
government.
(AP, 4/2/15)
2015 Apr 2, A judge in Guyana
temporarily blocked the South American country from accessing a $32
million loan from the Inter-American Development Bank because there
is no Parliament.
(AP, 4/3/15)
2015 Apr 2, In northeastern
India armed insurgents ambushed an army convoy in Arunachal Pradesh
state, killing 3 soldiers and wounding four others. Suspected
Kashmiri rebels killed two Indian security personnel and wounded two
soldiers and a civilian in a fierce gun battle in the northern
Himalayan territory.
(AP, 4/2/15)
2015 Apr 2, An Indonesian court
sentenced Canadian teacher Neil Bantleman (45) to 10 years in jail
on charges of sexually abusing three young children at a prestigious
international school in Jakarta. The principal and a number of other
teachers have said they believe Bantleman is innocent. Ferdinant
Tjiong, an Indonesian teaching assistant, was also sentenced to 10
years and both men planned to appeal.
(AP, 4/2/15)(AP, 4/3/15)
2015 Apr 2, In southern Iran
gunmen killed 3 police officers in Hamidiyeh near the Iraqi border.
(AP, 4/2/15)
2015 Apr 2, In Kenya 148
people, including 6 police and soldiers, were killed when Islamist
militant group al Shabaab stormed the Garissa University College
campus, taking Christians hostage and engaging security forces in an
extended shootout. All four of the gunmen wore suicide vests packed
with explosives, detonating themselves in huge blasts as the
dramatic assault finally ended after some 16 hours. It was later
reported that all four gunmen were themselves Kenyan. On June 4 four
men from Kenya and one from Tanzania were charged in court in
connection with the attack.
(AFP, 4/3/15)(AFP, 4/4/15)(AFP, 4/16/15)(Econ.,
4/11/15, p.46)(Reuters, 6/4/15)
2015 Apr 2, It was reported
that somebody was systematically poisoning the dogs of Hermosillo,
an industrial city in northern Mexico, and not just strays: At least
64 dogs, all with owners, have died of a similar poison since
mid-March.
(AP, 4/2/15)
2015 Apr 2, In northeastern
Nigeria an explosion near the Bauchi motor park, a bus station in
Gombe, left 10 people dead.
(AP, 4/3/15)
2015 Apr 2, A Pakistani
military courts’ statement said six Islamic militants have been
sentenced to death on charges including terrorism, murder, suicide
bombing and kidnapping for ransom. It said a seventh suspect was
sentenced to life imprisonment.
(AP, 4/2/15)
2015 Apr 2, Super typhoon
Maysak, blamed for the deaths of at least 4 people on islands in the
western Pacific Ocean, weakened after reaching Philippine waters and
was expected to further lose strength as it approaches the country's
northeastern coast.
(AP, 4/2/15)
2015 Apr 2, In the southern
Philippines a passenger boat overloaded with 55 people and heavy
cargo capsized, leaving at least 5 dead and one missing.
(AP, 4/3/15)
2015 Apr 2, In Portugal a rail
strike began. The Federation of Transport and Communications Unions
says rail company Comboios de Portugal is not paying the full amount
due to workers for vacation pay and for working on public holidays.
(AP, 4/2/15)
2015 Apr 2, In Portugal Manoel
de Oliveira (b.1908), celebrated movie director, died. His work
included over 30 feature films and dozens of short films and
documentaries.
(SFC, 4/3/15,
p.A2)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manoel_de_Oliveira)
2015 Apr 2, The Russian fishing
trawler Dalny Vostok sank in minutes in the icy waters off Russia's
Far East coast, killing at least 56 of the 132 people. At least 13
others were missing. Investigators later said greed and corruption
were to blame for the sinking.
(AP, 4/2/15)(Reuters, 4/8/15)
2015 Apr 2, Sierra Leone police
raided a funeral and arrested 13 people suspected of organizing an
unsafe burial, risking the spread of Ebola.
(AFP, 4/7/15)
2015 Apr 2, In Switzerland
negotiators reached a framework for a nuclear accord with Iran and
US President Barack Obama hailed an "historic understanding", but
senior global diplomats cautioned that hard work lies ahead to
strike a final deal.
(Reuters, 4/3/15)
2015 Apr 2, Syrian rebels and
fighters from the al-Qaida-affiliated Nusra Front captured the Nasib
crossing, the only functioning border crossing with Jordan, as well
as three nearby military posts. Palestinian fighters and Syrian
rebels retook control of large parts of a refugee camp in Damascus
that had been seized by IS jihadists.
(AP, 4/2/15)(AFP, 4/2/15)
2015 Apr 2, Tunisia's foreign
minister said that diplomatic relations with Syria will be restored
at a consular level, following a long hiatus that began during the
Arab Spring.
(AP, 4/2/15)
2015 Apr 2, Turkish police
launched early morning raids against suspected members of an
ultra-leftist group in Istanbul. At least 10 people were arrested in
the raids in the Okmeydani district of Istanbul.
(AP, 4/2/15)
2015 Apr 2, A major sandstorm
whipped through the Mideast's commercial hub of Dubai and other Gulf
cities, reducing visibility, diverting flights and making breathing
outside a challenge.
(AP, 4/2/15)
2015 Apr 2, In Vietnam workers
at a major footwear factory for Nike and Adidas ended a weeklong
strike after the government agreed to their demands on retirement
payouts.
(AP, 4/2/15)
2015 Apr 2, Yemen's Houthi
fighters and their allies seized a central Aden district striking a
heavy blow against the Saudi-led coalition which has waged a week of
air strikes to try to stem advances by the Iran-allied Shi'ite
group. AQAP fighters stormed the central prison in Mukalla and freed
150 prisoners, some of them al Qaeda detainees. AQAP was led by
Nasser al-Wuhayshi.
(Reuters, 4/2/15)(Econ., 4/25/15, p.46)

2016 Apr 2, Latin Jazz
saxophonist Leandro "Gato" Barbieri (83) died in NYC. He composed
the Grammy-winning music for the steamy Marlon Brando film "Last
Tango in Paris" and recorded dozens of albums over a career spanning
more than seven decades.
(AP, 4/3/16)
2016 Apr 2, Heavy fighting
erupted between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces over the separatist
region of Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijan said 12 of its soldiers were
killed and claimed to have inflicted heavy casualties on the
Armenian forces.
(AP, 4/2/16)
2016 Apr 2, A Belgian national
named only as Y.A. (33) was charged with participating in the
activities of a terrorist group in connection with a joint
Belgian-French investigation into an apparently foiled attack plot.
Two others have been named as Rabah N. and Abderrahmane A.
(Reuters, 4/2/16)
2016 Apr 2, Central African
Republic President Faustin Archange Touadera announced late today
that campaign manager Simplice Sarandji (61) was the new prime
minister.
(AP, 4/3/16)
2016 Apr 2, In Colombia tens of
thousands of people protested in more than 20 cities across the
country against President Juan Manuel Santos and his government's
peace process with the FARC guerrillas.
(AFP, 4/2/16)
2016 Apr 2, In western India
around 25 female activists were prevented from entering the Shani
Shingnapur temple in Maharashtra state, traditionally open only to
men, a day after a Mumbai court ruled that women have a fundamental
right to enter and pray inside temples.
(AP, 4/2/16)
2016 Apr 2, In Indonesia a
teenage girl was raped and murdered by 14 men. This went largely
unnoticed at a national level until social media users began
highlighting its brutality. The rape and murder reignited calls for
Parliament to pass the Elimination of Sexual Violence Act.
(AP, 5/3/16)
2016 Apr 2, Iraq's PM Haider
al-Abadi ordered an investigation into corruption allegations
against senior oil officials following an expose into bribe-taking
published in international media outlets.
(AP, 4/2/16)
2016 Apr 2, Libya's National
Oil Corporation said it was working with the U.N.-backed unity
government, which arrived in Tripoli this week, to coordinate future
oil sales.
(Reuters, 4/2/16)
2016 Apr 2, In Spain 7 people
died in a pre-dawn crash between two cars near the northern city of
Figueres. 5 people of a car with French license plates were between
19 and 22 and not wearing seatbelts.
(AP, 4/2/16)
2016 Apr 2, Syria's partial
cease-fire was unravelling, as fierce fighting between government
forces and opposition fighters, including members of the al-Qaida
affiliated Nusra Front, erupted outside the country's second largest
city of Aleppo. At least 25 pro-government fighters died in clashes
south of Aleppo, where the Nusra Front and rebel militias captured a
hill overlooking a major highway.
(AP, 4/2/16)

2017 Apr 2, The Federal
Emergency management Agency (FEMA) said disaster relief will be made
available for 42 California counties to help repair hundreds of
millions of dollars in damage incurred by February’s flooding,
storms and mudslides.
(SFC, 4/3/17, p.C3)
2017 Apr 2, It was reported
that an investigation by the NY Times found five women who have
received payouts from either Bill O’Reilly or Fox News that totaled
about $13 million.
(SSFC, 4/2/17, p.A5)
2017 Apr 2, In Louisiana a
tornado demolished a mobile home killing a woman and her daughter
(3) in Breaux Bridge.
(SFC, 4/3/17, p.A4)
2017 Apr 2, In Afghanistan at
least four provincial intelligence service agents were killed in an
attack by Taliban insurgents in eastern Ghazni province.
(AP, 4/3/17)
2017 Apr 2, Armenia held
legislative polls for the first time since the 2015 adoption of
constitutional reforms. Opposition parties denounced electoral
violations. The pro-Russian ruling Republican Party beat the main
opposition coalition, led by wealthy politician Gagik Tsarukyan, by
49.15 percent to 27.37 percent. On April 3 European observers said
there was "credible information" that the parliamentary elections
were marred by "vote-buying" and pressure on voters.
(AFP, 4/2/17)(AP, 4/3/17)
2017 Apr 2, Ecuador held
presidential elections. Business-friendly former bank boss Guillermo
Lasso (b.1955) faced leftist government candidate Lenin Moreno
(b.1953). Lenin Moreno won the presidential election 51% to 49%, but
his conservative challenger demanded a recount as supporters took to
the streets in protest.
(Reuters, 4/2/17)(Reuters, 4/3/17)(Econ 5/20/17,
p.30)
2017 Apr 2, An Egyptian court
ruled that a judicial decision to block the transfer of two Red Sea
islands to Saudi Arabia is void, potentially reviving a deal that
triggered protests. The decision by the Court of Urgent Matters was
subject to appeal and any final deal must be approved by parliament.
(Reuters, 4/2/17)
2017 Apr 2, In Germany a
Ghanaian man (31) reportedly raped a camper at knife-point in front
of her boyfriend days after being denied asylum, while the couple
was camping near Bonn. He was arrested five days later after DNA
evidence linked him to the crime.
(AP, 9/25/17)
2017 Apr 2, Indian PM Narendra
Modi inaugurated an 11-km (7-mile) tunnel through the Himalayan
terrain to help ease travel on a highway linking the troubled
Kashmir Valley with the rest of India. Separatist leaders fighting
for the region's independence from India or its merger with
neighboring Pakistan shut businesses and public transport in the
region and said the construction of tunnels and roads would not
succeed in appeasing them.
(AP, 4/2/17)
2017 Apr 2, In southern India a
German tourist was raped in the beach town of Mamallapuram, Tamil
Nadu state. Police searched for two men suspected in the rape.
(AP, 4/3/17)
2017 Apr 2, In Nigeria three
suicide bombers blew themselves up attempting to get into the
northeastern city of Maiduguri. A dog grappled with a suicide bomber
at a wedding in Belbelo village near Maiduguri until her explosives
detonated, killing the animal as well.
(AP, 4/2/17)(SFC, 4/6/17, p.A2)
2017 Apr 2, In Pakistan 20
people were tortured and then murdered with clubs and knives at a
Sufi shrine, in an attack purportedly carried out by Abdul Waheed,
the shrine's custodian, and several accomplices at the edge of
Sargodha, Punjab province.
(Reuters, 4/2/17)
2017 Apr 2, Philippine soldiers
killed "more than 10" Islamic State-linked Abu Sayyaf militants in
an attempt to free 6 Vietnamese captives held on a remote southern
island. 32 soldiers were also wounded in the assault in Talipao
town. There was no word on the fate of the captives.
(Reuters, 4/3/17)
2017 Apr 2, In Russia police
detained more than 20 anti-corruption protesters who took to the
streets of Moscow in a follow-up of last week's large-scale
demonstrations.
(Reuters, 4/2/17)
2017 Apr 2, Serbia held
presidential elections. Conservative PM Aleksandar Vucic (47) was
the runaway favorite despite opposition warnings about the extent of
his domination. Vucic won the presidency in the first round,
enabling him to push forward with his plan to lead the Balkan
country into the European Union.
(Reuters, 4/2/17)(AFP, 4/3/17)
2017 Apr 2, In central Sweden a
bus carrying high school students to a ski resort crashed south of
Sveg, killing three people and injuring 20 others — seven of them
seriously.
(AP, 4/2/17)
2017 Apr 2, In Syria US backed
forces repelled a major counter-attack by Islamic State militants
holding out at the country's largest dam and in the nearby town of
Tabqa. Dozens of their fighters were reported killed. Hundreds of
families with their cattle, property, motor bikes and vans continued
to flee from villages under Islamic State control.
(Reuters, 4/2/17)
2017 Apr 2, In Syria rebels
said jets believed to be Russian hit a northwestern outpost run by
moderate rebel forces, killing at least one fighter and wounding
several people. War jets also believed to be Russian also struck
Urum al Kubra town in rebel-held western Aleppo countryside where
five civilians were killed.
(Reuters, 4/2/17)